Kinnaird glanced up at them with a frown.
"I fancy we should find another level strip above," he said; "but since we can't get up the only thing to do is to push on.

From what I saw through my glasses when I went up the lake, there is certainly an easier slope once we get around the corner." They went on, wearily, with the wall of rock creeping out nearer and nearer to the edge of the declivity, and it became quite clear to Weston that the girls' strength was rapidly failing.

Still, he quietly urged them on, for it was now becoming a somewhat momentous question whether they could get down before darkness fell; and as a rule the white mists settle heavily upon those ranges with the dusk.

Then the margin between rock and declivity almost disappeared, and Weston, looking down on the somber tree-tops, felt reasonably certain that there was now another wall of crags between the foot of the slope and them.
"I suppose you are quite sure, sir, that the face of the hill is less steep around the corner in front of us ?" he asked.
"I am," replied Kinnaird.

"I traced out the route with my glasses from the head of the lake.