the ground rising higher and higher, until at last the
wet slippery grass began to give way to a broken waste of rocks and
heather. I had reached the top, and although I could see nothing on
account of the mist, I knew that right below me lay the woods, with
only about a mile of steeply sloping hillside separating me from their
agreeable privacy.

Despite the cold and the wet and the fact that I was getting devilish
hungry, my spirits somehow began to rise. Good luck always acts on me
as a sort of tonic, and so far I had certainly been amazingly lucky. I
felt that if only the rain would clear up now and give me a chance of
getting dry, Fate would have treated me as handsomely as an escaped
murderer had any right to expect.

Making my way carefully across the plateau, for the ground was stiff
with small holes and gullies and I had no wish to sprain my ankle, I
began the descent of the opposite side. The mist here was a good deal
thinner, but night was coming on so rapidly that as far as seeing
where I was going was concerned I was very little better off than I
had been on the top of the hill.

Below me, away to the right, a blurred glimmer of light just made
itself visible. This I took to be Merivale village, on the Tavistock
road; and not being anxious to trespass upon its simple hospitality, I
sheered off slightly in the opposite direction. At last, after about
twenty minutes' scrambling, I began to hear a faint trickle of running
water, and a few more steps brought me to the bank of the Walkham.

I stood there for a little while in the darkness, feeling a kind of
tired elation at my achievement. My chances of escape might still be
pretty thin, but I had at least reached a temporary shelter. For five
miles away to my left stretched the pleasantly fertile valley, and
until I chose to come out of it all the warders on Dartmoor might hunt
themselves black in the face without finding me.

I can't say exactly how much farther I tramped that evening. When one
is stumbling along at night through an exceedingly ill-kept wood in a
state of hunger, dampness, and exhaustion, one's judgment of distance
is apt to lose some of its finer accuracy. I imagine, however, that I
must have covered at least three more miles before my desire to lie
down and sleep became too poignant to be any longer resisted.

I hunted about in the darkness until I discovered a small patch of
fairly dry grass which had been more or less protected from