We had not lost more than a quarter of an hour in this halt; but it was sufficient, as I found when I rose, to have cooled me down and made me feel fresh and ready for the arduous climb that we now had to make. Our path was along by the stream for a time, but more often right in it, for the valley grew narrower, and was frequently little more than a gigantic crack in the mountain-side; but so beautiful that I often longed to stop and gaze at the overhanging ferns and velvety moss by some foaming fall, where the water came down from above like so much fine misty rain.
But there was no halting, and we kept on till the leader suddenly turned into a gloomy niche on our left, out of which another stream rushed; and here for some time we had to climb from rock to rock, and often drag ourselves on to some shelf by the overhanging roots of trees. The ascent was wonderfully steep, and sometimes so narrow that we were in a dim twilight with the sky far away above us, like a jagged line of light. As for the stream in whose bed we were, it was a succession of tiny falls now, and we were soon dripping from the waist downward.
But no word was spoken, and the men worked together as if trained by long service to this kind of travelling. When some awkward rock had been climbed by the leader, he stopped and held down his hand to Mr Raydon, who sprang up and offered me the same assistance, while I, taking it as the proper thing to do, held my hand down to the next.
For full two hours we struggled up this narrow rift before it became less deep, and the light nearer. Then the climbing was less difficult, and drier, and I could see that we were getting up more on to the open mountain-side, amid the bare rocks and piled-up stones. All at once the leader stopped short, and pointed up to where, quite half a mile away, I could see about a dozen sheep standing clearly defined against the sky, their heads with the great curled horns plainly visible. Some were feeding, but two stood above the rest as if on guard.
Mr Raydon nodded, and the man said—
“I lost sight of my sheep just below where you see those, sir, and I think if we keep on along for a mile beyond we shall find the stream we want running down into the other valley.”
Mr Raydon stood shading his eyes for a few minutes.
“Yes,” he said, at last. “You are quite right. I can see the mountain I have been on before. Forward!”
The way was less arduous now, and the fresh breeze into which we had climbed made it cooler; but still it was laborious enough to make me pant as I followed right in Mr Raydon’s steps. Before we had gone on much further I saw the sheep take alarm, and go bounding up, diagonally, what looked like a vast wall of rock, and disappear; and when we had climbed just below where I had seen them bound, it seemed impossible that they could have found footing there.
Another half-hour’s toilsome ascent, for the most part among loose stones, and we stood gazing down into a narrow gully similar to that up which we had climbed, and at the bottom I saw a little rushing stream, which Mr Raydon said was the one we sought, and I knew that we had but to follow that to where it joined the big river, after a journey through the dense mass of forest with which the valley was filled.