At length they rose to resume their journey in accordance with Bart’s decision. This new calamity broke up that cheerfulness and hopefulness which he had been maintaining since the priest had spoken to him those encouraging words; and the thought of Pat and Solomon wandering about, without food and without guides through this trackless forest, gave him more than his former anxiety. It seemed a succession of misfortunes that was destined to end in some kind of a tragedy, and there arose within his mind the dark anticipation of some inevitable calamity as the natural termination of all these pieces of ill-fortune. Struggling as well as he could with these gloomy forebodings, Bart once more set out after his guides on what he now began to think a hopeless errand. But now there came other things to distract his mind from the anxieties that were harassing it in the shape of the difficulties of the way. The guides were right in their warning about the toil and labor that now lay before them. There were dense underbrushes to penetrate--so dense and so close that every step was a struggle; there were streams to ford, in which they sank to the armpits; there were swamps to cross, where there was nothing but one long struggle from one extremity to the other; and added to this there were long pathways that led over fallen trees, and through tangled weeds, and tall ferns, which impeded the feet at every step, and necessitated the most painful and the most unremittent exertion. In his progress through the woods before, Bart had found nothing like this, except for very short periods of time, and he thought that if such a journey as this had been before him he could never have escaped. Thus far the heat had been very great. There was no wind. The air was still and stagnant; and the effort of walking, even when the walk had been easy, as at first, had been somewhat exhaustive. But now the exertion required was far greater, and what was worse, the heat far more intense. There was a torrid heat in the atmosphere that exceeded anything which he had thus far experienced, and made all exertion doubly toilsome and exhaustive. Yet in spite of all this, his deep anxiety about Phil seemed to sustain him, and though he felt ready to drop, yet he managed to maintain his march, and follow on after his guides. At length they emerged from a tangled thicket which had offered extraordinary obstacles to their progress. They came suddenly into a wide, open place, quite bare of trees, and overgrown with low brush and trailing evergreen vines. Here there burst upon them an extraordinary sight,--so extraordinary, indeed, that they all stopped with one common impulse, and gazed in silence upon the scene before them. XVI. _The wide open Space.--The terrific Scene.--Arrested and driven back.--New Purposes.--The Story of the Great Fire of Miramichi, and the Ruin wrought in one tremendous Night._