Page:Son of the wind.djvu/20

 of boulders, and connected by a slow, creeping thread of water.

If he must camp, he thought, this was the best place, water, and safe ground for a fire. But camp, or go back, or go on? He put his hand into his pocket, regretting that there were not three sides to a penny, and peered forward between the tree trunks at the other side of the bank to see in which direction his road led. At first it seemed to him that it cut away to the right, then that it led straight on before him. Then that it led two ways. He was rather afraid of being disappointed, but actually there was no doubt about it.

The other side of the creek gave him a clearer prospect. The road he had followed skirted around the base of a hill, the same hill, no doubt, that he had seen from afar, set castle-like across his path, but the first turn to the left, which he now turned into out of the wider track, addressed itself direct to the ascent, winding, narrow, steep and dim in the tunneled trees. Carron kept glancing from side to side of it, as if what he was searching for might at any moment start out on him through the flow of leaves. He was poised, ready for the next thing to happen, alert against surprise, though the trail of events he was following should double upon him as unexpectedly as the road, which, after plunging him