I figured all this out as I have heard a condemned man will count the windows of the houses on his way to the scaffold.
Presently the litter was ready, and the men made signs to me to get into it.

They carried me down the ravine and up the Machudi burn to the green walls at its head.

I admired their bodily fitness, for they bore me up those steep slopes with never a halt, zigzagging in the proper style of mountain transport.

In less than an hour we had topped the ridge, and the plateau was before me.
It looked very homelike and gracious, rolling in gentle undulations to the western horizon, with clumps of wood in its hollows.

Far away I saw smoke rising from what should be the village of the Iron Kranz.