"
came back his dismal answer.

Thimble, with a sign to him, laid gravely down a little heap of nuts in
the snow. And the three travellers left the old pilgrim still standing
desolate and unquestionable in the snow, watching them till they were
gone out of sight.

Coming presently after to some trees with tough, straight branches, the
travellers made themselves fresh cudgels. After which, to raise their
fallen spirits, they played hop-pole awhile in the sunshine, just as
they used to in the first days of the snow before they set out on their
travels. And about noon, when the sun stood radiant above them, they met
three Men of the Mountains, with shallow baskets on their heads, coming
down to gather Ukka-nuts in the valley. These Mulgars have long silken,
black-and-white hair and very profuse whiskers. They are sad in face,
with pouting lips, have but the meanest of thumbs, and turn their toes
in as they walk, one behind another, and sometimes in chains of a
hundred together. Thumb stood in their path, and inquired of the first
of them, as before, which way they must follow to cross the mountains.

The voice of the Man of the Mountains who answered them was so high and
weak Nod could scarcely hear his whisper. "There is no way over," he
said.

"But over we must go," said Thumb.

The other shook his head, and looked sadder than ever. And on they all
three went again, lisping softly together, but without another word to
Thumb.

"What's to be done now?" said Nod.

"Where they came down, we can go up," said Thumb.

So, the Men of the Mountains being now hidden from sight by the rocks
below, Thumb and his brothers turned up the narrow track between great
boulders of stone, by which they had come down. And glad they were of
the new staves or cudgels they had broken off. Even with the help of
these, so steep was the path that they had often to pull themselves up
by roots and jutting rocks. And gradually, besides being steep, the way
grew so narrow that they were simply walking on a ledge of rock not more
than two Mulgar paces wide. And for giddiness Nod nearly fell flat when
by chance he turned his eyes and looked down to where, far below, a
frozen torrent gleamed faintly amid huge boulders that looked from this
height no bigger than pebble-stones.

It made him giddy even to keep his eyes fixed on the narrowing path
before him, and shuffle up, up, up.

Suddenly, Thumb, who was wheezing and panting a few paces in fr