Meantime John found the rock slippery, the path heavy, and his young guide a drag on him.  The path through the fir woods which had been so delightful two days (could it be only two days?) ago, was now a baffling, wearisome zigzag; yet when he tried to cut across, regardless of the voice of his guide, he found he lost time, for he had to clamber, once fell and rolled some distance, happily with no damage as he found when he picked himself up, and plodded on again, without even stopping to shake himself.

At last came an opening where he could see down into the Kandersteg valley.  There was the hotel in clear sunshine, looking only too like a house in a German box of toys, and alas! there was also a toy carriage coming round to the front!

Like the little foot-page of old ballads, John “let down his feet and ran,” ran determinately on, down the now less precipitous slope-—ran till he was beyond the trees, with the summer sun beating down on him, and in sight of figures coming out from the hotel to the carriage.

Johnny scarce ventured to give one sigh.  He waved his hat in a desperate hope of being seen.  No, they were in the carriage.  The horses were moving!

But he remembered a slight steep on the further road where they must go slower.  Moreover, there were a few curves in the horse-road.  He set his teeth with the desperate resolution of a moment, clenched his hands, intensified his mental cry to Heaven, and with the dogged determination of Kencroft dashed on, not daring to look at the carriage, intent only on the way.

He was past the inn, but his breath was short and quick; his knees were failing, an invisible hand seemed to be on his chest making him go slower and slower; yet still he struggled on, till the mountain tops danced before his eyes, cascades rushed into his ears, the earth seemed to rise up and stop him; but through it all he heard a voice say, “Hullo, it’s the Monk!  What is the matter?”

Then he knew he was on the ground on his face, with kind but tormenting hands busy about him, and his heart going so like a sledge hammer, that the word he would have given his life to utter, would not come out of his lips, and all he could do was to grasp convulsively at something that he believed to be a garment of the departing travellers.

“Here, the flask!  Don’t speak yet,” said a man’s voice, and a choking stimulant was poured into his mouth.  When the choking spasm it cost him was over, his eyes cleared, and he could at least gasp.  Then he saw that it was his housemate, Evelyn, at whom he was clutching, and who asked again in amaze—-

“What is up, old fellow?”

“Hush, not yet,” said the other voice; “let him alone till he gets his breath.  Don’t hurry, my boy,” he added, “we will wait.”

Johnny, however, felt altogether absorbed in getting out one panting whisper, “A doctor.”

“Yes, yes, he is,” cried Evelyn.  “What’s the matter?  Not Brownlow!”