down there was no wood, save low bushes, betwixt them and the rock-
wall; and Walter noted that whereas otherwhere, save in one place
whereto their eyes were turned, the cliffs seemed wellnigh or quite
sheer, or indeed in some places beetling over, in that said place
they fell away from each other on either side; and before this
sinking was a slope or scree, that went gently up toward the sinking
of the wall. Walter looked long and earnestly at this place, and
spake nought, till the carle said: "What! thou hast found something
before thee to look on. What is it then?"

Quoth Walter: "Some would say that where yonder slopes run together
up towards that sinking in the cliff-wall there will be a pass into
the country beyond."

The carle smiled and said: "Yea, son; nor, so saying, would they
err; for that is the pass into the Bear-country, whereby those huge
men come down to chaffer with me."

"Yea," said Walter; and therewith he turned him a little, and
scanned the rock-wall, and saw how a few miles from that pass it
turned somewhat sharply toward the sea, narrowing the plain much
there, till it made a bight, the face whereof looked wellnigh north,
instead of west, as did the more part of the wall. And in the midst
of that northern-looking bight was a dark place which seemed to
Walter like a downright shard in the cliff. For the face of the
wall was of a bleak grey, and it was but little furrowed.

So then Walter spake: "Lo, old friend, there yonder is again a
place that meseemeth is a pass; whereunto doth that one lead?" And
he pointed to it: but the old man did not follow the pointing of