His pack-horse would have hard enough going in any event.
From time to time Wade halted to rest the burdened pack-animal.

At length he came to a trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to follow.

It led out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and down upon the forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands.
One aspen grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for reasons hard to guess, had suffered little from frost.

All the leaves were intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against the blue.

It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with yellow grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had never seen in his flower-loving life.