could not be dared by Ringan and not respond. So we set off at a great
pace up the ridge, which soon grew very steep, and forced us to a
crawl. There were places where we had to scramble up loose cliffs amid
a tangle of vines, and then we would dip into a little glade, and then
once again breast a precipice. By and by the trees dropped away, and
there was nothing but low bushes and boulders and rank mountain
grasses. In clear air we must have had a wonderful prospect, but the
mist hung close around us, the drizzle blurred our eyes, and the most
we saw was a yard or two of grey vapour. It was easy enough to find the
road, for the ridge ran upwards as narrow as a hog's back.

Presently it ceased, and with labouring breath we walked a step or two
in flat ground. Ringan, who was in front, stumbled over a little heap
of stones about a foot high.

"Studd had a poor notion of a cairn," he said, as he kicked them down.
There was nothing beneath but bare soil.

But the hunter had spoken the truth. A little digging in the earth
revealed the green metal of an old powder-flask with a wooden stopper.
I forced it open, and shook from its inside a twist of very dirty
paper. There were some rude scratchings on it with charcoal, which I
read with difficulty.

_Salut to Adventrs_.
_Robbin Studd on ye Sumit of Mountaine ye 3rd_
_dy of June, yr_ 1672 _hathe sene ye_
_Promissd Lande_.

Somehow in that bleak place this scrap of a human message wonderfully