The little band of searchers is now working its way wearily up the steep. It was well that the old shepherd knew the path in past times, or they would have been inevitably lost. They are too much engrossed, by their life and death engagement, to see how glorious in its wintry majesty is the scene above, beneath, and around; the shining crest of the mountain, each broad white shoulder, and every descending line, sharply cut against the dark blue sky; the lake beneath as blue as the deep sapphire above, each headland projected in silvery curves into the lake, pencilled with the feathery outlines of snow-laden branches, or heavily fringed and embroidered with the dull dark green of the pines. The crags, where they were too precipitous to afford a resting-place to the snows, on ledge or in hollow, looked out stern and bald from the prevailing drapery; and here and there a fleecy cloud had floated down to hold some mysterious parley with a mountain-top, for the time confounding all distinction between earth and sky.
"What can that little line of thread be, up there in the hollow of the crag?" asked Mark Wilson. "It cannot be a shred of mist, can it? It looks strangely like smoke." They all looked up; and there was, sure enough, a slender line of blue smoke curling upward from a dark crevice of the rock.
"Smoke, heather smoke, and none other, unless I am blinded with the snow," was Geordie's reply. "It's uncommon strange, that. Come, my lads, we will find out who has lighted a heather fire up on the heights like that, and what for it is."
Mark made no reply, but strode and clambered on. He had his own painful theory whereby to account for the phenomenon. They were now at the foot of the crag, when first one man's head, and then another, was seen peering down over the rocks. The heads instantly disappeared again; and presently, after, the curling line of blue smoke disappeared also; but the old shepherd's practised eye had already carefully taken its bearings and noted its way-marks.
"Up this way, lads; we will soon see what sort of bird has been building its nest in such a queer hole as that."
"It is the nest of foul birds of prey, and we must net them, if we can," remarked the schoolmaster, gloomily.
"Ay, ay, net them, master; and carry off the nest egg," said the shepherd with a knowing smile.
"Have they got guns up there, I wonder?" said one of the farm lads, in a hesitating voice. "I can't say as though I much like the sport."
"Come on," cried the schoolmaster, "we are doing our duty, and that is enough for brave Englishmen."
Scarcely had he spoken when a bullet whistled sharply past his head, and splintered a projecting point of rock close behind him.