Ten minutes later they were running down the slope of Deal Hill, under the cover of the stone walls; then tearing across the frozen marshes, and clambering up the steep banks and crags that bounded the west side of Lovel’s Woods. The sun was sinking in the west, and its rich mellow golden light fell athwart the snow-clad woodland, flooding it with glory, save where the great masses of pine and cedar cast broad splotches of shadow. The splendid loveliness of the dying afternoon, the biting cold of the wind, the thrill of doing the forbidden, filled Tony with a delicious sense of happiness and adventure. Each boy had his arms full of cooking utensils, food, boxes—the varied paraphernalia of a cave. It had been an ancient custom at Deal during the winter for boys to have caves in Lovel’s Woods, where they cooked weird messes during the afternoons when there was no skating. This year the Doctor, owing to certain abuses reported by the prefects the year before, had decided to restrict the use of caves to the three upper forms. Kit had a particular cave in mind, far away on the remote side of what was known as the Third Ridge, a cave that he and Jimmie and Teddy Lansing had had together the year before as Second Formers. This desirable spot was a natural formation in the rocky side of the farther of the three ridges of which Lovel’s Woods consisted. It was practically inaccessible from below, and the entrance above, well concealed by a clump of low cedars, was a narrow cleft in the rocks, at the extreme edge of which the initiated might descend to the cave by a series of dangerous steps which the boys had fashioned in the side of the precipitous cliff. Tony and Kit climbed down into the cave, while Jimmie, lying flat on the ledge above, handed down to them the supply of stores. These were safely stowed in a strong box, which had lasted out the previous season, and made secure. When the boys had clambered up again, they discovered that the sun had set and the darkness was gathering swiftly. The clear crescent of the new moon hung in the western sky a band of gold, and the evening star was rising over the ocean. “Twenty minutes to supper: we can just make it,” exclaimed Kit, looking at his watch. “Heave ahead, my hearties, and let’s run for it.” And run they did, at breakneck speed along the mazy paths, through the tangled undergrowth, over the slippery crags, across the frozen marsh. Kit, the imprudent, was impudently singing at the top of his shrill voice the verses of one of the School songs. “Out of the briny east, Out of the frosty north, Over the school-topp’d hill, Whistle the shrill winds forth. “Over the waves a-quiver, Over the salt sedge grass, Over the beaches tawny, The bright wind spirits pass.” And the other two boys took up the ringing refrain, “Grapple them e’er they go, Grapple them e’er they go.”