152 THE BED MOUNTAIN OF ALASKA. 
Forward — march ! " called Mr. Dutton, cheerily. 
Joe went first, and Jim brought up the rear, the rest 
trailing along between. 
For an hour or more, no great difficulty was experi- 
enced. They kept along the height of land within hear- 
ing of the river, following patiently all its wayward 
crooks and turns. At length, however, they began to 
come upon fallen trees in greater and greater abun- 
dance. 
Now, the hardest possible tramping in wild lands is 
where growing timber has fallen and died with its limbs 
sticking out in every direction. This kind of a district is 
called slash," and is as far as possible avoided by 
hunters. 
The Indian in advance stopped, dodged about here and 
there, and tried every possible chance of an escape or 
detour : but it was of no use ; through the timber their path 
lay, and through it they must go. There had been large 
forest fires there at some time within the last generation, 
and the bleached or charred trunks protruded mournfully 
from the entangled mass of underbrush. Hour after hour 
the weary travellers toiled over and through this terrible 
clievaux-de-frise. Their clothes were torn, their limbs 
bruised, and their feet aching. Oftentimes they would 
step from a slippery log and sink in a slough, covered 
with treacherous moss, up to the waist. The mosquitoes 
— those ever present torments — fairly swarm in this 
hruUy as the French-Canadian hunters call the burnt 
