"I'll be game after this rest. I got a little blown up that last bit,
that's all."
"It doesn't look awfully far now," said Ashby.
"It's further than it looks. Come on; let's be jogging," said Wally.
The new ascent, which consisted chiefly in clambering from stone to
stone up the rocky ravine, was less exhausting than the tramp up the
bog, and as Wally was no better at this sort of climbing than any of the
rest, he did not dishearten them by getting hopelessly ahead, but kept
with the party. Occasionally they had to help one another up a
specially stiff ledge, and this mutual accommodation was an additional
source of comfort to the weak goers. Progress was very slow. Cash,
having hauled himself up on to a little platform of moss, looked at his
watch and was alarmed to find it was past one. The huge ravine, at the
far head of which they could see the open sky, seemed a tremendous
distance yet. And after that, according to Wally, was to come the bog
and the cliffs beyond, on which Wisdom lost his life.
Yet none of these things was quite so bad as the rolling up of some
fleecy clouds behind them, which effaced the view below, and seemed to
be crawling up the mountain in pursuit of them.
Cash pointed this out to Wally, who grunted.
"We shall miss the view from the top," said he.
"If we ever get there," said Cash.
On they scrambled again, casting every now and then a longing look
upward at the grim ravine head, and now and then an anxious glance
behind at the fast overhauling clouds.
"We're bound to get out of it up there," sang out Wally.
But almost as he spoke the light mist swept past him, blotting out
everything but the boulder he stood on and a rift of the dashing water
at his feet.
The clouds had befriended Fisher minor. They did what he durst not do;
ordered the party to halt.
"Where are you?" shouted Wally from the invisible. "Here; where are
you?"
"Stay there; and I'll come to you."
Slowly the party foregathered, and stood huddled in the blinding mist on
a flat rock.
"It's blowing over," said Wally. "We'd better make back for the hill-
side, and get out of this ravine till it clears up."
It was no easy task scrambling back, down that difficult way, over
boulders already made slippery by the moist mist, and not able to see
four yards ahead. The clouds poured up to meet them in column upon
column, growing denser and wetter every minute. At last, how they
scarcely knew, they came down to where the rush of the water ceased and
the stones gave place to wet grass.
"We must be somewhere near where we sat down last," said Ashby. "Whew!
it's cold."
"The thing is," said Percy, "aren't we too much out to the left?
There's no sign of a path that I can see."
"This looks like one," said a voice ahead, which they recognised as
Wally's. "Come along--this way."
They followed as well as they could, and groped about for the path.
Then they shouted.
Wally replied out of the mist.
"Stay there a bit--it's not a path. I'll yell when I've got it."
They waited, and for five minutes listened anxiously for the signal.
Then they thought they heard it away to the right, and floundered off in
pursuit. But after a little they discovered that they were going
uphill.
"Hadn't we better go back to where we were," said Cash, "or we may miss
him?"
It occurred to most of the party that they had missed him already.
Still, they decided to go back.
Presently they distinctly heard what sounded like a voice below them.
"That must be he. Yell!"
They shouted, and again there seemed to come a faint response.
"All right," said Percy. "Stay where you are, and I'll go and fetch him
up."
And he vanished into the mist.
"What's the time?" said Ashby, as the party stood dismally waiting.
"Half-past four. It's a good job it doesn't get dark till six."
"Only an hour and a half," said Cottle; "I wish those chaps would come."
But though they strained their ears and eyes, no sign of the missing
ones came; nothing but the swish of the rain and the whistle of the wind
through the grass.
"We'd better go on," said D'Arcy presently; "they'll probably get down
some other way. Look sharp, or it will be dark."
So they started at a fast walk down the boggy slope.
"Keep close," said D'Arcy after a time. "Are you all there?"
Everybody answered for himself, but not for his neighbour.
"You there, young Fisher minor?"
"Yes," replied Fisher's voice from the rear.
He seemed so near that they started on again.
But after another five minutes, Ashby, who was last but one, shouted
again.
"Where are you, Fisher minor?"
There was no answer.
"Wait a bit, you fellows. Fisher minor's behind."
But no answer came from that direction either.
"Here's a go," said Ashby to himself. "That kid Fisher's gone lame, and
he'll be lost if I don't wait for him."
So he dismally turned back, shouting and whistling as he went.
The clouds all round grew duller and heavier in the fading light, and
the wind-blown rain struck keenly on the wanderer's cheek.
"That kid," said Ashby to himself, as he sturdily tramped through the
marsh, "ought not to have come. He's not up to it."
But despite all his shouting and whistling and cooeying, not a sound
came out of the mist but the wind and the driving of the rain.
Still Ashby could not bring himself to leave the "kid" in the lurch.
Even if he did not find him it would be better to--
"Ah! what was that?"
He clapped his hands to his mouth and shouted against the wind with all
his might.
His voice was flung back in his face; but with it there came the feeble
sound of a "coo-ey" somewhere near.
Ashby sprang to it like a drowning man to a straw. If it was only a
lost sheep it would be some company. For ten minutes he beat round,
shouting all the time, and once or twice fancying he heard an answer.
Then suddenly he came upon a great boulder, against which leaned Fisher
minor, whimpering and shivering.
"Here you are!" said Ashby, joyously. "Thank God for it! I gave you up
for lost. The others are gone on. Come on. Hang on my arm, old hoss."
"I can't; I'm too fagged to go on. I'm awfully sleepy, Ashby. You go
on; I'll come presently."
Ashby's reply was prompt and vigorous. He took his fellow-junior by the
arm and began to march him down the slope as fast, almost faster than
his weary legs would carry him.
And as they started, the last of the light died out of the mist, and
left them in blank darkness.