Thimble coughed. "So it is," he said solemnly.
"Ay," said Thumb; "but what I was asking was the longest way round.... A track, a path to the beautiful Valleys of Tishnar," he shouted across to the solitary Môh-mulgar. Sorrowfully he waved his bony arms about his head, and stooped again. "Geguslar, nōōma gulmeta mūh!" came back his dismal answer.
Thimble, with a sign to him, laid gravely down a little heap of nuts in the snow. And the three travellers left the old pilgrim still standing desolate and unquestionable in the snow, watching them till they were gone out of sight.
Coming presently after to some trees with tough, straight branches, the travellers made themselves fresh cudgels. After which, to raise their fallen spirits, they played hop-pole awhile in the sunshine, just as they used to in the first days of the snow before they set out on their travels. And about noon, when the sun stood radiant above them, they met three Men of the Mountains, with shallow baskets on their heads, coming down to gather Ukka-nuts in the valley. These Mulgars have long silken, black-and-white hair and very profuse whiskers. They are sad in face, with pouting lips, have but the meanest of thumbs, and turn their toes in as they walk, one behind another, and sometimes in chains of a hundred together. Thumb stood in their path, and inquired of the first of them, as before, which way they must follow to cross the mountains.
The voice of the Man of the Mountains who answered them was so high and weak Nod could scarcely hear his whisper. "There is no way over," he said.
"But over we must go," said Thumb.
The other shook his head, and looked sadder than ever. And on they all three went again, lisping softly together, but without another word to Thumb.
"What's to be done now?" said Nod.
"Where they came down, we can go up," said Thumb.
So, the Men of the Mountains being now hidden from sight by the rocks below, Thumb and his brothers turned up the narrow track between great boulders of stone, by which they had come down. And glad they were of the new staves or cudgels they had broken off. Even with the help of these, so steep was the path that they had often to pull themselves up by roots and jutting rocks. And gradually, besides being steep, the way grew so narrow that they were simply walking on a ledge of rock not more than two Mulgar paces wide. And for giddiness Nod nearly fell flat when by chance he turned his eyes and looked down to where, far below, a frozen torrent gleamed faintly amid huge boulders that looked from this height no bigger than pebble-stones.