218 THE COLUMBIAN OR COAST DEER

have been more so if the cold had not numbed them,
My few clothes were now in ribbons. I was bitterly cold,
too, as the darkness was so intense it was only possible
to grope my way along at a snail’s pace; whenever I
tried to take a rest my teeth began to chatter. When
the moon rose the light improved in spite of the rain,
and it was possible to travel faster.

Somewhere about midnight I floundered into a terrible
tangle of fallen timber, through which in the poor light
I could only make my way by crawling. At last, after
what seemed hours of unavailing struggle, becoming
utterly wearied and disgusted with the country, the deer,
myself, and everything else, I flung myself on the ground
for a moment’s rest. Incidentally I landed in a pool of
water! Then, as I struggled to get up, my hand encoun-
tered the end of a log that had been cut by an axe, and it
was palpable that I must be where logging operations
had taken place, that all this fallen timber consisted of
old tree tops that had been of no value, and that one
of the roads must be within a short distance. With
renewed vigour a hunt for it was commenced.

If my troubles had been great before they were infinitely
more so now. The going was simply vile; there were
old rotten logs mixed up with tree tops lying piled up in
great profusion whichever way I turned, and, to make my
progress more difficult, they were intergrown with thick
brush and dense masses of blackberry vine. Finally,
after scrambling about for what seemed several hours, I
stumbled on a road.

But my path was still beset with difficulties. Which
way to take on the road was a puzzle. Of course I took
the wrong way and must have gone a good half-mile
before a branch road joined the one I was on and showed
me my mistake by the angle it came in. By that time the
rain had eased up somewhat, the clouds had lifted and
the light improved, so that when I did turn back it was
possible to make better time, though my pace was still
slow owing to the road being frequently blocked by fallen
trees,