on its other side, and picked
their way carefully between clumps of rushes and curious round holes
filled with dark-colored water. The ground was very soft and walking
became a toil, but Pete held steadily to his winding course and Foster,
although getting tired, did not lag behind.

They were some time crossing the bog and when they reached the foot of
the rise, which ran in a long line between them and the west, the light
got dimmer suddenly. A yellow glow that seemed to come from low down
flushed the sky, but the rough slope was dark and the hummocks and
gullies on its side were losing their distinctness. Foster felt
somewhat daunted by the prospect of pushing across the waste after
darkness fell, and doggedly kept level with Pete as they went up the
hill obliquely, struggling through tangled grass and wiry heath. When
they reached the summit, he saw they were on the western edge of the
tableland but some distance below its highest point Though it was
broken by rolling elevations, the ground ran gradually down to an
extensive plain where white mist lay in the hollows. A belt of saffron
light lingered on the horizon, with a half-moon in a streak of green
above, and one or two twinkling points showed, faint and far off, in
the valley.

"Yon," said Pete, "is Bewcastle dale, and I ken where we'll find a
welcome when we cross the water o' Line. But I'm thinking we'll keep
the big flow in our left han'."

Instead of descending towards the distant farmsteads, he followed the
summit of the rise, and Foster, who understood that a flow is a soft
bog, plodded after him without objecting. The heather was tangled and
rough, and hid the stones he now and then stumbled against, but it was
better to hurry than be left with a long distance to cover in the dark.
Indeed, as he caught his feet in the wiry stems and fell into holes, he
frankly admitted the absurdity of his adventure, a sense of which
amused him now and then. He was in a highly civilized country, there
were railways and telegraph lines not far off, and he was lurking like
an ancient outlaw among the bogs! It looked as if there must be better
ways of meeting his difficulties, but he could not see one. Anyhow, he
had determined to save his partner, and now, if his plans were hazy and
not very wise, it was too late to make a sweeping change.

After a time Pete stopped abruptly, and then dropping into a clump of
heather, pointed backwards down the long slope on