Look at that!" He had climbed up the zigzag track another fifty feet, and stopped short to gaze away at the bright stars of the clear night with the great layer of fog all below him now.
"Father was right, but I dunno whether they'll be able to see from the lugger.

Don't matter.

They know the way, and they'd see the signal s'afternoon." He whistled softly as he went on higher, laughing all at once at an idea which struck him.
"Suppose they were to row right on to the cutter! Wouldn't it 'stonish them all?
I know what I should do.

Shove off directly into the fog.
They wouldn't be able to see, and I wouldn't use the sweeps till I was out of hearing, and then--oh, here we are up atop!" For the sheep-track had come to an end upon what was really the dangerous part of the journey.

The zigzag and the cliff-path had been bad, but a fall there would not have been hopeless, for the unfortunate who lost his footing would go down to the next path, or the next, a dozen places perhaps offering the means of checking the downward course, but up where the boy now stood was a slope of short turf with long dry strands which made the grass terribly slippery, and once any one had fallen here, and was in motion, the slope was at so dangerous an elevation that he would rapidly gather impetus, and shoot right off into space to fall six hundred feet below on to the shore.
This danger did not check Ram's cheery whistle, and he climbed on, sticking his toes well into the short grass, and rising higher and higher till he reached some ragged shale with the grass, now very thin, and about a hundred feet back from the sea, in a spot which he felt would be well out of the sight of the cutter if those on board could see above the fog.