How long he had been traveling since he awakened on damp ground and fought himself to his feet, he had no way of telling. Whether the sun had risen and was shining brightly above, he did not know. How close or how far he was to the railroad was equally vague. But Nathan, following that straight, muddy, northern road, came at last to a turn. The road bore off at right angles to the eastward.
He stopped, swaying dizzily.
“I didn’t come to any such corner last night,” he cried. “I know I didn’t! If I’m down in a valley—in a defile—somewhere around here are hills. I’m going straight northward and see if I can’t find hills. Then I’ll climb somehow to the top and try and get my direction—see if I can locate the railroad.”
It was not a decision to be taken lightly. So long as he kept to the road, that road must lead somewhere. If he lost that road by wandering away into the hills, he might never be able to find it again. Yet could he always follow it through lowlands, always stumble and stagger onward down in fog? He had to make that decision. And he did make that decision. He decided to climb upward on to the heights and trust to the sunlight above to set him aright.
The sunlight above to set him aright!
Anyhow, that climb started. For he found a hill almost directly ahead of that abrupt turn in the road to the eastward. That is why it had turned,—to avoid the grade.
It might not have been a serious climb for a normal man. But for a man exhausted and broken as Nathan was exhausted and broken, it was Golgotha in earnest. This was its only redeeming feature: as he dragged himself up, it became quickly evident that the world was growing brighter about him.
Yes, somewhere above the sun was shining, shining gloriously!
Up, up, up! On hands and knees now. The fog was thinning. He knew, because somehow the air felt warmer in those moments when his body was cold.
Because he was turned face downward, crawling tortuously, he did not see that sun when first it was discernible through the vapor.