the buoyancy of youth, I argued that since we had got
so far we must get farther. Also the fever seemed to be leaving my
bones and my head clearing. Elspeth was almost merry. Like a child
playing at making house, she ordered the men about on divers errands.
She was a fine sight, with the wind ruffling her hair and her cheeks
reddened from the rain.

Ringan came up to me. "There are three Hours of daylight in front of
us. What say you to make for the top of the hills and find Studd's
cairn? I need some effort to keep my blood running."

I would gladly have stayed behind, for the fever had tired me, but I
could not be dared by Ringan and not respond. So we set off at a great
pace up the ridge, which soon grew very steep, and forced us to a
crawl. There were places where we had to scramble up loose cliffs amid
a tangle of vines, and then we would dip into a little glade, and then
once again breast a precipice. By and by the trees dropped away, and
there was nothing but low bushes and boulders and rank mountain
grasses. In clear air we must have had a wonderful prospect, but the
mist hung close around us, the drizzle blurred our eyes, and the most
we saw was a yard or two of grey vapour. It was easy enough to find the
road, for the ridge ran upwards as narrow as a hog's back.

Presently it ceased, and with labouring breath we walked a step or two
in flat ground. Ringan, who was in front, stumbled over a little heap
of stones about a foot high.

"Studd had a poor notion of a cairn," he said, as he kicked them down.
There was nothing beneath but bare soil.

But the hunter had spoken the truth. A little digging in the earth
revealed the green metal of an old powder-flask with a wooden stopper.
I forced it open, and shook from its inside a twist of very dirty
paper. There were some rude scratchings on it with charcoal, which I
read with difficulty.

_Salut to Adventrs_.
_Robbin Studd on ye Sumit of Mountaine ye 3rd_
_dy of June, yr_ 1672 _hathe sene ye_
_Promissd Lande_.

Somehow in that bleak place this scrap of a human message wonderfully
uplifted our hearts. Before we had thought only of our danger and
cares, but now we had a vision of the reward. Down in the mists lay a
new world. Studd had seen it, and we should see it; and some day the
Virginian people would drive a road through Clearwater Gap and enter
into possession. It is a subtle joy that which fills th