“Whiles, maybe,” Pete answered grinning.  “For a’ that, they maun tak’ the consequences.  Do ye feel it’s yere business to break a new road?”

“Certainly not!  I’m not a philanthropist and would be quite satisfied with making things a little easier for myself and my friends, but am much afraid I haven’t succeeded yet.  In fact, there’s one friend in England who’s very far from grateful.  But the question is—­Why did I leave the train?”

“Ye just felt ye had to?”

“I think I did.  But why did I feel that?”

Pete chuckled.  “There ye have me!  This I ken; whiles when I had a hare or a few paltrig in the lining o’ my auld coat and cam’ to a slap in a dyke, I had a kind o’ feeling yon was no’ the road for me.  I couldna’ tell there was a keeper hiding on the ither side; but I didna’ gang.  Maybe it’s better no’ to argue but follow yere heart.”

“No,” said Foster, “I imagine it’s really better to follow your head.  In the meantime, I’ve had no lunch and think we’ll get on.”

They came to a wide hollow in the hills where the snow was deep and loose.  The sun was shut out and the frost was keen, while Foster saw by the lengthening shadow of the pines across the river that the afternoon was wearing on.  A glance at his watch showed that he had been walking for nearly three hours, but there was no sign of the hotel.  Dark masses of trees ran up from the water to the line of summer snow, and no roof or curl of smoke broke their somber monotony.  High above, the peaks glittered with a steely brightness that seemed to intensify the cold.

Their breath hung about them as they plodded on, but at length, when they came to the middle of the bend, where the hills curved out again, there was a break and they stopped at the end of a bridge.  The low sun shone into the gap, which was profoundly deep and majestically beautiful.  On its farther side, tremendous crags held up the snow, which trickled down their faces in thin gray streaks and stretched back above, steeped in soft blue shadow.  On Foster’s side, giant pines glimmered a bright green in the warm light, running up to a glittering slope that ended in two rugged peaks, and a river that sprang from a wrinkled glacier foamed through the dusky gorge.  Where a small clearing had been cut in the forest, steep red roofs stood out in harmonious contrast with the green of the firs, and a picturesque wooden building with pillars and verandas occupied the greater part of the opening.

“If the place is as attractive inside, it’s worth the walk,” Foster remarked.  “You appreciate your quarters best when you’ve had some trouble to get there.”

“I’m thinking that’s true.  The peat fire and the auld rush chair in the bit cothouse are weel worth winning to when ye come through the rain and wind ower the dark moss.  This is a gran’ country, but it’s no’ like that ither amang the Border fells.”