if I may say so, with all my might.

What had happened? What was going to happen? Were we to stay there all
night in the darkness, shivering with cold and damp? Only a little
while ago I had been tired and hot; now I did not feel the fatigue, but
was shivering with cold, and my hands and face were wet.

I wanted to call out to Uncle Bob again, but the sensation came over
me--the strange, wild fancy that something had happened to him, and I
dared not speak for fear of finding that it was true.

All at once as I knelt there, listening intently for the slightest
sound, I fancied I heard some one breathing. Then the sound stopped.
Then it came nearer, and the dense mist parted, and a figure was upon
me, crawling close by me without seeing me; and crying "Uncle Bob!" I
started forward and caught at him as I thought. My hands seized moist
wool for a moment, and then it was jerked out of my hands, as, with a
frightened _Baa_! Its wearer bounded away.

"What's that?" came from my left and below me, in the same old
suffocated tone.

"A sheep," I cried, trembling with the start the creature had given me.

"Did you see which way it went?"

"Yes--beyond me."

"Then it must be safe your way, Cob. I'll try and crawl to you, lad,
but I'm so unnerved I can hardly make up my mind to stir."

"Let me come to you," I cried.

"No, no! I'll try and get to you. Where are you?"

"Here," I cried.

"All right!" came back in answer; but matters did not seem all right,
for Uncle Bob's voice suddenly seemed to grow more distant, and when I
shouted to him my cry came back as if I had put my face against a wall
and spoken within an inch or two thereof.

"I think we'd better give it up, Cob," he shouted now from somewhere
quite different. "It is not safe to stir."

I did not think so, and determined to make an attempt to get to him.

For, now that I had grown a little used to the fog, it did not seem so
appalling, though it had grown thicker and darker till I seemed quite
shut-in.

"I'll stop where I am, Cob," came now as if from above me; "and I
daresay in a short time the wind will rise."

I answered, but I felt as if I could not keep still. I had been scared
by the sudden separation from my companions, but the startled feeling
having passed away I did not realise the extent of our danger. In fact
it seemed absurd for three strong men and a lad like me to be upset in
this way by a mist.

Uncle Dick had had a fall