"What rate did you travel?"
"I fancy about forty miles the first day, but considerably less afterwards, making it somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred miles."
"Yes, I suppose so, but of course the calculation is mere guesswork, and it may be forty or fifty miles out. Since escaping we have only steered by the sun, and may be a good deal north or south of due west. Besides, we have made such bends and turns as would make it impossible to keep anything like a true reckoning. However, suppose we call it two hundred miles from here to Darlinger, we shall be lucky if, travelling among the hills, we don't have to go twice that distance. Certainly, unless we get into a very different country from that through which we have been travelling so far, ten miles a day is the extreme that we can calculate upon."
"In that case, Charlie, even if all goes well it will be from forty to fifty days before I see my dear father."
"But I think we shall travel a good bit faster than that," Carter said encouragingly. "Everywhere through these mountains are valleys, some of them of considerable size, and containing a dozen or more villages. Of course when we come upon these we could travel at night, and ought to be able to do from twenty to thirty miles. We could not have done that at first, but the practice we have had at this work has put us into first-rate marching condition."
"Yes, except my feet, Charlie; think of my poor feet. My shoes are fast disappearing, and I don't know what I shall do when they come quite to pieces."
"I must kill a goat and make a pair of sandals for you of its skin."
"Thank you, Charlie, that would be first rate; still, these shoes will do for a bit yet, and I am a little doubtful as to your capabilities as a shoemaker. Well, I think we shall do better to-morrow. From the high ridge we last crossed I could see a large valley in front of us, and I am not sure but I saw villages."
"Then your eyes are sharper than mine are; I saw the valley, but I failed to make out anything like habitations. However, in any case, we are not likely to go very fast to-morrow, for I should say that we must be still some fifteen miles from the valley."
"Oh well, one day will not make any very great difference. We will go on as long as it is light enough to see, and then camp for the night, go down the next day to a point low in the hills, and can either camp for the night or stop twenty-four hours."