Yet
not once in the course of that trip did he bewail his fate. Towards the
close of this first afternoon I dropped behind to see how he was making
it. The boy had his head down, his lips shut tight together, his legs
well straddled apart. As I watched he stumbled badly over the merest
twig.
"Dick," said I, "are you tired?"
"Yes," he confessed frankly.
"Can you make it another half-hour?"
"I guess so; I'll try."
At the end of the half-hour we dropped our packs. Dick had manifested
no impatience--not once had he even asked how nearly time was up--but
now he breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"I thought you were never going to stop," said he simply.
From Dick those words meant a good deal. For woods-walking differs as
widely from ordinary walking as trap-shooting from field-shooting. A
good pedestrian may tire very quickly in the forest. No two successive
steps are of the same length; no two successive steps fall on the same
quality of footing; no two successive steps are on the same level.
Those three are the major elements of fatigue. Add further the facts
that your way is continually obstructed both by real difficulties--such
as trees, trunks, and rocks--and lesser annoyances, such as branches,
bushes, and even spider-webs. These things all combine against
endurance. The inexperienced does not know how to meet them with a
minimum of effort. The tenderfoot is in a constant state of muscular
and mental rigidity against a fall or a stumble or a cut across the
face from some one of the infinitely numerous woods scourges.
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