eemed to chill him, and for the first time he awoke
to the fact that his feet and legs were saturated. "I must get on to
some hotel, and to-morrow make for the nearest station, and go home."

Just then, for a moment, it occurred to him that he had left everything
at Dunroe; but his thoughts went off in another direction, and then in
another and another, finally resting upon the idea of the possibility of
getting to the nearest station.

But where was the nearest station? Stirling. The line to Oban had not
been made in those days; and now Max began to grow confused, as he
recalled the fact that there was only one railway line running through
the Western Highlands, and whether that were to the north, south, east,
or west, he could not tell.

Neither at that hour could he tell which way these quarters lay. All he
knew was that he was in a thick mist somewhere in the mountains, high up
or low down in one of the hollows, and that if he stirred from where he
stood, he must literally feel his way.

For a moment the idea came upon him that he had better stop till
daylight, but just then a peculiar muffled cry smote his ears, and a
thrill of terror ran through him as he felt that it would be impossible
to sit there all through the long hours of the night in the cold and
darkness. So he started at once, the cry he had heard influencing his
direction, for he struck off the opposite way.

He made very slow progress, but at the end of a few minutes he knew that
he was descending a rapid slope, and he went stumbling on through tall
heather which was laden with moisture. Every now and then, too, he
struck against some stone, but he persevered, for he fancied that the
mist was rather less thick as he descended.

Then he tripped, and went headlong into the drenched heather, and
struggled up with the feeling of confusion increasing as he stood trying
to pierce the gloom.

Mist and darkness everywhere, and he once more went on downward, but
diagonally, as it had grown now almost too steep to go straight down the
slope; and so on for the next half-hour, when, as he leaned forward and
took a step, he went down suddenly, and before he could save himself he
was falling through space, his imagination suggesting an immense depth,
but in two or three moments he touched bottom, and went rolling and
scrambling among loose shingly stones for quite a hundred feet before he
finally stopped.

He got up slowly and painfully, half stunned