At last, and the knowledge was very bitter, he was face to face with defeat.

He forgot for the moment that Grenfell lay just beyond the tangled undergrowth.
He gazed straight in front of him, with a hard hand clenched and a look in his wavering eyes that puzzled his companion.

At length he raised himself wearily to his feet.

After all, the needs of the body would not be denied, and, as Devine had said, before they set about the task that awaited them they must drink.
"Well," he said hoarsely, "I'm going to cut a fork." He smashed back through the undergrowth toward the pines, unlashed the ax from the horse's back, and, though he was never afterward sure whether he cut it from a young fir or a bush of juniper, Devine came upon him some time later trimming a forked twig with a short stem where the two slender branches united.

The surveyor glanced at it and smiled.
"Any water that ran into this hollow must have come from the range," he said.