CRUISING 39 
or bar of chocolate, for lunch is always light. But 
more often a seductive glade or shady brook will lure 
the cruiser to his hour of leisure. Oblivious then of 
the return run, the long miles to camp, he will sit 
ruminating pleasantly while the quiet minutes float 
away, soothed by the ancient peace of the forest, 
with only the murmuring of the stream or the chat- 
ter of a squirrel or the song of birds to keep his 
thoughts company. 
When Frazer and I started back we found the 
westward journey much harder than the outward 
trip. It was a steady climb all the way. At noon 
the aneroid recorded an elevation of 8,200. When 
we reached the baseline at half past four we found 
that we had ascended to a height of 9,100 feet, a 
climb of almost a quarter of a mile. 
We checked in on station six. We were three 
chains too far north and a chain east of the station 
when we finished, fair pacing in rough country. 
This checking in is always an interesting climax 
to the day’s work. In unsurveyed land it is the only 
means a cruiser has of testing the accuracy of his 
pacing. Of course compensating errors may some- 
times cause a man to come much nearer his station . 
than the quality of his work warrants, but as a rule 
the practice is a fairly reliable criterion of the 
cruiser’s proficiency in measuring distance. 
We rested a short time before starting for camp, 
I felt full of energy and vigour, far fresher than in 
the morning, as if I could continue climbing moun- 
