Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/172

 youth been stationed in one of the seventy-foot spruces now beginning to line their course he would have observed that the woodsman always turned back towards a certain point and that his detours were made to avoid embarrassing obstacles, such as ledges and windfalls.

Abner paused and pointed to one of the latter and remarked, “That’s the trap that catches the green hunter. See how the wind some time has torn through here, laying the trees flat like nine pins. The swath is a clean cut one, ye’ll notice, and the boughs and trunks make a pretty high fence. When ye try to climb over it ye’ll find it mighty rough going. Then comes the green hunter and makes the attempt. His rifle he drags behind him, a limb catches the trigger. Bang! and he’s shot and sinks down between the trunks and boughs and a searching party may crawl oyer him, or pass within ten feet of him, and never suspect where his body lies. He’s simply marked as disappearing.”

On reaching the mountain proper Stanley turned to look down the course they had ascended thus far. To his surprise he could not observe any particular ascent. There was nothing to show they had climbed a foot, and