At length, after laboriously climbing the rough but gently rising slope of a long divide all one blustering day, they camped on a high tableland, and lay awake, too cold to sleep, beside a sulky, greenwood fire. In the morning it was difficult to get upon their feet, but as the light grew clearer, the prospect they looked down upon seized their attention. The hill summits were wrapped in leaden cloud, but a valley opened up below. It was wider and deeper than any they had met with since leaving the factory, the bottom looked unusually level, and it ran roughly south.
They gazed at it in silence for a time; and then Harding said, "I've a notion that this is the valley where Blake fell sick, and it's going to straighten out things for us if I'm right."
"That's so," Benson agreed. "We would be sure of striking the Stony village, and we could afterwards follow the low ground right down to the river. With the muskegs frozen solid, it ought to make an easy road."
Blake was conscious of keen satisfaction, but there was still a doubt.
"We'll know more about it after another march," he said.
No snow fell that morning, and as their packs were ominously light they made good speed across the hill benches and down a ravine where they scrambled among the boulders of a frozen creek. It was a grey day without the rise in temperature that often accompanies cloudiness, and the light was strangely dim. Rocks and pines melted into one another at a short distance, and leaden haze obscured the lower valley. Blake was, however, becoming sure it was the one they had travelled up and, dispensing with the usual noon halt, they pushed on as fast as possible. All were anxious to set their doubts at rest, for there was now a prospect of obtaining food and shelter in a few days, but they recognized no landmarks, and with the approach of evening the frost grew very keen. The haze drew in closer, the scattered pines they passed wailed drearily in a rising wind, and the men were tired, but they could see no suitable camping place and held on, looking for thicker timber.
It was getting dark when a belt of trees stretched across the valley, and they were thinking of stopping, when Benson, who led the way, cried out.
"What is it?" Harding asked.
Benson hesitated. "Well," he said, "the thing doesn't seem probable, but I believe I saw a light. Anyway, it's gone."
They stopped, gazing eagerly into the gloom. A light meant that there were men not far off, and after the grim desolation they had travelled through all were conscious of a longing for human society. Besides, the strangers would, no doubt, have something to eat and might be cooking a plentiful supper. There was, however, nothing to be seen until Blake moved a few yards to one side. Then he turned to Benson with a cheerful laugh.