from the earth. Round about him other men were sprawled; some lay
like corpses, others were propped against their packs, a few
stirred and sighed like the sorely wounded after a charge. Those
who had lain longest rose, took up their burdens, and went
groaning over the sky-line and out of sight. Every moment new
faces, purple with effort or white with exhaustion, rose out of
the depths--all were bitten deep with lines of physical suffering.
On buckled knees their owners lurched forward to find resting-
places; in their eyes burned a sullen rage; in their mouths were
foul curses at this Devil's Stairway. There were striplings and
graybeards in the crowd, strong men and weak men, but here at the
Summit all were alike in one particular--they lacked breath for
anything except oaths.

Here, too, as in the valley beneath, was another great depot of
provision piles. Near where Phillips had thrown himself down there
was one man whose bearing was in marked contrast to that of the
others. He sat astride a bulging canvas bag in a leather harness,
and in spite of the fact that the mark of a tump-line showed
beneath his cap he betrayed no signs of fatigue. He was not at all
exhausted, and from the interest he displayed it seemed that he
had chosen this spot as a vantage-point from which to study the
upcoming file rather than as a place in which to rest. This he did
with a quick, appreciative eye and with a genial smile. In face,
in dress, in manner, he was different. For one thing, he was of
foreign birth, and yet he appeared to be more a piece of the
country than any man Pierce had seen. His clothes were of a
pattern common among the native packers, but he wore them with a
free, unconscious grace all his own. From the peak of his Canadian
toque there depended a tassel which bobbed when he talked; his