CHAPTER XVII.
I RETRACE MY STEPS.
Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow country.

As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains near at hand.

There they lay, not more than ten miles distant, woody almost to the summit, but with here and there a bold finger of rock pointing skywards.

They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable would to these have been no more than a footstool.

I made out a clear breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd's Clearwater Gap.