The Long Portage by Harold Bindloss

The evening was dull and gloomy, a gray sky hung over the desolate hills, and Millicent, sitting alone on a rocky slope, felt troubled and depressed. Beneath her, the long hollow that crossed the big divide stretched back, colored in cheerless neutral tints, into drifting mist. It was sprinkled with little ponds, and banded here and there with belts of stunted trees, small birches and willows, and ragged cedars that hid the oozy muskegs under them.

The girl was worn with travel, for Lisle had abandoned the canoes some time ago, and the party had followed, by what he called easy stages, the trail he and the packers had broken, though the women had found the way hard enough. This, he had informed them, would shorten the journey a good deal, and he expected to fall in with some Indians, from whom canoes could be obtained, once they had crossed the divide; failing this, they might be compelled to retrace their steps.