At times they fell over boulders and into thickets of rotting branches that lay around fallen trees, but, though their senses had almost deserted them, they were certainly going down.

The pines grew taller and thicker; withered twigs and needles crackled beneath their feet; though in places they plunged downward amidst a rush of slipping gravel.

Still, half-dazed as he was, Weston was puzzled.

It seemed to him that the gully they were descending was longer than it should have been.

It ought to have led them, by that time, out on a plateau from which the hillside fell to the hollow where they had made the cache.
He did not, however, mention this to Grenfell.
By degrees the dim black trees grew hazier and less material.