r woman-borne, and for hay they
use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass
as though it were snow.

"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve
feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles
emerging."

The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of
Dormitor.

The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be
impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a
witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees,
and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a
rifle.

Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now
think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small
obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw
her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging
almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the
enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar
occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to
a perpendicular.

Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses
side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee
from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge
with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still
visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been
dragging edges in the dew.

Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they
flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a cheery,
pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.

"To the front," they said.

"What for?"

"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the
huge coloured knapsacks.

"How far have you to walk?" we asked.

"Four more days."

"And how far have you walked?"

"Four days."

No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were
cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50
pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to
their fighting kin.

We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.

The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and
walk, and so we came to Shavnik.

Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its li