I
could make out for certain was that he had crossed the stream, and that
his business, whatever it was, had been with the few acres of tumbled
wilderness below the precipices.

I spent a busy morning there, but found nothing except the skeleton of
a sheep picked clean by the ravens. It was a thankless job, and I got
very cross over it. I had an ugly feeling that I was on a false scent
and wasting my time. I wished to Heaven I had old Peter with me. He
could follow spoor like a Bushman, and would have riddled the
Portuguese Jew's track out of any jungle on earth. That was a game I
had never learned, for in the old days I had always left it to my
natives. I chucked the attempt, and lay disconsolately on a warm patch
of grass and smoked and thought about Peter. But my chief reflections
were that I had breakfasted at five, that it was now eleven, that I was
intolerably hungry, that there was nothing here to feed a grasshopper,
and that I should starve unless I got supplies.

It was a long road to my cache, but there were no two ways of it. My
only hope was to sit tight in the glen, and it might involve a wait of
days. To wait I must have food, and, though it meant relinquishing
guard for a matter of six hours, the risk had to be taken. I set off at
a brisk pace with a very depressed mind.

From the map it seemed that a short cut lay over a pass in the range. I
resolved to take it, and that short cut, like most of its kind, was
unblessed by Heaven. I will not dwell upon the discomforts of the
journey. I found myself slithering among screes, climbing steep
chimneys, and travelling precariously along razor-backs. The shoes were
nearly rent from my feet by the infernal rocks, which were all pitted
as if by some geological small-pox. When at last I crossed the divide,
I had a horrible business getting down from one level to another in a
gruesome corrie, where each step was composed of smooth boiler-plates.
But at last I was among the bogs on the east side, and came to the
place beside the road where I had fixed my cache.

The faithful Amos had not failed me. There were the provisions--a
couple of small loaves, a dozen tins, and a bottle of whisky. I made
the best pack I could of them in my waterproof, swung it on my stick,
and started back, thinking that I must be very like the picture of
Christian on the title-page of _Pilgrim's Progress_.

I was liker Christian before I reached my destination--Christian after
he had go