“Then, when you’re ready, sir, I am. If we’ve got it to do, let’s begin and get this soft bit over, for we shan’t get along very fast.”
“No; the soft snow makes the travelling bad; but we go higher at every step, and by-and-by we may find it hard. Now then, I’ll lead. The ridge must be right before us, as far as I can make out.”
“Don’t ask me, sir,” said Gedge. “Wants a cat to see in the dark; but I think you must be right. Best way seems to me to keep on going uphill. That must be right, and when it’s flat or going downhill it must be wrong.”
Bracy made no reply, but, after judging the direction as well as he could, strode off, and found that his ideas were right, for at the end of a few minutes the snow was crackling under their feet.
“Now for it, Gedge. You’ll have to lift your feet high at every step, while they sink so deeply. Hullo!”
There was a sharp crackling as he extended his left foot, bore down upon it, and with a good deal of resistance it went through a crust of ice, but only a short way above the ankle. Quickly bringing up the other foot, he stepped forward, and it crushed through the hardening surface, but only for a few inches. The next step was on the rugged surface of slippery ice, and as they progressed slowly for about a hundred yards, it was to find the surface grow firmer and less disposed to give beneath their weight.
“There’s one difficulty mastered,” said Bracy cheerily. “The surface is freezing hard, and we can get on like this till the sun beats upon it again.”
“I call it grand, sir; but I hope it won’t get to be more uphill.”
“Why?”
“Because if we makes one slip we shall go skating down to the bottom of the slope again in double-quick time. I feel a’ready as if I ought to go to the blacksmith’s to get roughed.”