These were the circumstances which had made the two Appletons travelling companions of Major Endicott in this eventful summer. So far the journey had been without incident. The caravan marched from dawn to dark every day, and the two Appletons found even the rugged majesty of the mountains pall upon them. The pleasantest hours were those spent in camp, when the heat and burden of the day were past. In social circles Major Endicott was regarded as something of a stick; ladies said he had "no conversation"; but in the silent evenings about the camp fire the lads hung upon his lips as he related, in slow sentences, punctuated by puffs from his pipe, some of the incidents of his career. They conceived an admiration not far short of hero-worship for this quiet soldier, who knew so much, and had done so much, though his own achievements were never the prime subject of his discourse. To relieve the monotony of the journey, the two lads sometimes ventured to stray from the track, knowing that the speed of their sturdy hill ponies would enable them soon to catch up the rest of the slow-moving caravan. For these divagations the opportunities were few, unless they should turn themselves into mountaineers, and scale on foot the precipices on either side. But now and then there was a break in the hills to right or left, where a small mountain stream joined the larger river that flowed through the valley, above which the road pursued its winding course. The Major had warned them not to wander far on these occasions, and his warnings became more peremptory as they approached the quarter in which he feared that trouble might be brewing. But high-spirited youth is impatient of control, and the two lads were inclined to make light of the sober caution of their elder. Two days after they had encamped on the mountain side, as already related, they were tempted to try what appeared to be a kind of track leading up into the hills to the east. Taking advantage of a momentary preoccupation of Major Endicott with the sowars, they turned their ponies into this track, and began to scramble up. The gradient was steep, and the path rose higher and higher above the road they had left, but for some distance did not greatly diverge from it. At times they could see it winding away northward beneath them, although it was concealed from them for long stretches by the contour of the ground, and was sometimes difficult to distinguish from the hillside itself. The track appeared to lead nowhere, and after following it toilsomely for nearly an hour, they began to think it was time to return. "I hate going back the same way," said Lawrence. "Can’t we manage to cut straight down, Bob?" "Rather risky, don’t you think?" replied his brother. "This track goes up and up; there’s no path down that I can see, and we don’t want to risk our ponies’ knees. We could do it on foot."