When at last he reached the height he was met by an icy wind of tremendous force from the weather side of the hill and it was only with extreme difficulty that he could keep his footing. Using the wind as his guide he decided on a place where the gradient was less and the direction right as far as he could judge and trusted that this would be the col between the summits. It was anxious work and at last he began to feel that he had descended too far. He had missed the col. He was lost. Although better in health his nerves were still shaken. For a moment he half broke down. “Oh, if I could only see you once again, Aline,” he cried, “and you will never know that months afterwards the shepherds found the remains of an unknown man upon the hills.” He peered into the mist as though by strength of will he would force its secret. It was vain, the mist was blankly impenetrable. Under ordinary circumstances he was too good a hillsman to mind and would simply, worse come to the worst, have followed down stream till he came to the haunts of men, but it was a matter of life and death to him now not to come down the wrong valley. Moreover, there were the precious papers, for which he had already risked so much. Gradually he recovered, but what was he to do? Which side had he gone wrong? He stood and reflected for a moment. The direction of the wind seemed all right, but it was very much less in force. Surely then he was to the east of the col. Oh, if only the mist would lift, but it still raced past, with its white swirling, cruel fingers. The wind sighed sadly in the rank, red tinted grass, and away below he heard the falling of many waters and the endless bleating of sheep. Every now and then some gigantic menacing forms would seem to shape themselves out of the mist;--they danced round him, they pointed at him, they mocked him. They were trolls, they were the spirits of death, the lost souls of the sons of men. A brooding horror seemed to sweep over the desolate hillside, chilling him with a nameless dread. He turned a little further into the wind and the ground grew more wet and mossy. This must surely be somewhere below the middle of the col, he argued, and he struck still more to the left.