More than once they felt they had just enough left in them to make the peak that faced them; and then, when it was reached, their endurance had to stretch and stretch until it seemed that the point of breaking must come at each step.
If nothing else they had ever done deserved the reward of the virtuous, that honest pull up the side of the Welkin Beacon did; and Freckleton, had he seen them making the last scramble, would have put their names down on his list without further probation.
The cairn stood before them at last, and as they rushed to it, and planted themselves on the topmost point, where still a few scraps of the scent lingered, all the fatigue and labour were forgotten in an exhilarating sense of triumph and achievement.
“Rather a breather, that,” said Dick, his honest face beaming all over; “you chaps took a lot of driving.”
“I feel quite fresh after it,” said Coote, beaming too.
“You didn’t feel fresh ten minutes ago, under the last shoulder but one, my boy. If you feel so fresh, suppose you trot down and up again while Georgie and I sit here and look at the view.”
Coote declined, and after a short rest they dropped down the long slope, with the scent in full view, on to Lowhouse, where the Gurgle, slipping clear and deep between its banks, seemed to them one of the loveliest pictures Nature ever drew.
The scent lay right along the bank, sometimes down on the stones, sometimes on the high paths above the tree tops, until suddenly it stopped.
“By Jove, we shall have to swim for it, you fellows,” cried Dick, delighted. “Chuck your shoes and things across, and tumble in.”
With joy they obeyed. They would fain have spent half an hour in the delicious water, so soft and cool and deep. But Dick was in a self-denying mood, and would not allow his men more than ten minutes. That, however, was as good as an hour’s nap; and when, after dressing and picking up the scent, they took up the running again, it was like a new start.