If we can increase our lead and the mist cloaks us, there is yet a chance.' It was a weary business plodding up to the skirts of the hills.

We had the pursuit behind us now, and that put an edge on every difficulty.
There were long banks of broken screes, I remember, where the snow slipped in wreaths from under our feet.

Great boulders had to be circumvented, and patches of bog, where the streams from the snows first made contact with the plains, mired us to our girths.

Happily the mist was down again, but this, though it hindered the chase, lessened the chances of Hussin finding the path.
He found it nevertheless.

There was the gully and the rough mule-track leading upwards.