Norton realized that the supreme test of his energies
had come, and he bore up with set jaw and determined
purpose. In spite of his great strength, however, his
shoulders ached and his face streamed sweat. Fallen
trees impeded his path, and tangles of vines tripped
his feet. Over and over, he was compelled to rest,
but at each of these periods the shivering of the
ranchman told him that he must not delay. Then his

327



THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MORNING

teeth would come together with a click and he would
go on, till exhaustion forced him to stop again.
To Norton it seemed that the world through which
he was passing was given over to the chaos and fiends
— there was a maliciousness in the air which whined
of ill. The wolf packs of the blizzard ran high, and
the moan in the forest seemed to mock him with his
weakness. He seemed so small, so impotent in the
midst of the unchained fury.
In his overwrought condition Norton found it easy
to imagine the limbless pines with eyes watching a
strange creature passing with a gruesome burden on
its back. They seemed to have become interested in
weighing the chances of the thing which struggled,
and found them many to one that the man and his
burden would be destroyed by the dragonish wilder-
ness.
