"No. Fetch guides. Come with them. Quick." There were no guides to be had nearer than Penchurch, four miles off, and Wally, very cold and wet and hungry and footsore, with a big load on his heart as he thought of Percy, pulled himself together with an effort and stumped off. Rollitt strode on up the slope in the gathering night. Cold and weather mattered little to him, still less did danger. But Fisher minor mattered very much. For Percy or any of the rest he might probably have stayed where he was; but for the one boy in Fellsgarth he oared about he would cheerfully go over a precipice. Every now and again he stood still and shouted. But in the wind and rain it was impossible to say if any one heard him or called again. After an hour or more he found himself on the first ridge, where for a few yards the ground is level before it rises again. Here he called again, once or twice. Once there came, as he thought, a faint distant whistle, but by no manner of calling could he get it to come again. He started off in the direction from which it seemed to come, calling all the way, but never a voice came out of the darkness. For a couple of hours he doggedly haunted the place, loth to leave it while a chance remained. Then he gave it up, and started once more up the steep slope. He looked at his watch by the light of a match. It was eleven o'clock. He shuddered, but not with the cold, and went on. Something--who could say what?--told him that he must go higher yet. Once last year, in company with Wisdom, he had been as far as the upper bog, and had wanted to go to the top. But Wisdom had dissuaded him. Now, even in the darkness the ground seemed familiar, and he tramped on up the swampy steep till presently he found himself near the sound of rushing water at the foot of the great ravine. The stream had grown so strong since the afternoon that to shout against it was more hopeless than ever. Yet Rollitt shouted. Had a voice replied, he felt sure he could have heard it. But none did. Up the steep ravine he went, finding the going easier than through the spongy swamps below. About half-way up, just where the juniors ten hours ago had decided to turn back, as he looked up, he saw what seemed like clear sky through a frame in the mist. Was it clearing after all? Yes. The higher he got the more the mist broke up into fleeting clouds, which swept aside every few moments and let in a dim glimmer of moonlight on the scene. At the top of the ravine he shouted again; but all was still. Even the wind was dying down, and the rain fell with a deadened sob at his feet. Three o'clock! Wisdom had told him, the day they had been up there, that the top was only three-quarters of an hour beyond where he stood. Something still cried "Excelsior" within him, and without halting longer than to satisfy himself by another shout, he started on.