Delilah of the Snows by Harold Bindloss

It was late in the afternoon when Ingleby, who led two jaded pack-horses, limped into the Green River canyon. His long boots, which were caked with the mire of leagues of travel, galled him cruelly; every joint was aching; and it was only by an effort he kept himself on his feet at all. It had rained most of the way from the distant settlement where he had been for the flour Hetty had asked for, and during the last week he had slept by snatches amidst the dripping fern while the pitiless deluge thrashed the fir trunks that indifferently sheltered him. The few strips of natural prairie in the valleys had turned to treacherous swamps, where he sank to the knee, and every few miles there was a furious torrent to be forded perilously.

Had he been called on to make that journey under such conditions when fresh from England he would probably never have reached the canyon, but strenuous toil with pick and shovel and the simple life of the wilderness had hardened him, and endued him with the strength of will which holds the worn-out body in due subjection. Man's capacity for endurance is, as even the hard-handed bushman knows, moral as well as physical; but Ingleby was making his last effort when he reached the great rift between the hills.