How he achieved that tremendous climb he could never say. The clouds had rolled off, and the moonlight lit up the rocks almost like day. Never once did he pull up or flag in his ascent. He even ceased to shout. Presently there loomed before him, gleaming in the moonlight, the cairn. For the first time in its annals, a Fellsgarth boy had got to the top of Hawk's Pike. But, so far from elation at the glory of the achievement, Rollitt uttered a groan of dismay when he looked round and found no one there after all. That he would find Fisher minor there he had never doubted; and now--all this had been time lost. Without waiting to heed the glorious moonlight prospect over lake and hill, he turned almost savagely, and scrambled down the crags. It was perilous work--more perilous than the scramble up. But Rollitt did not think of danger, and therefore perhaps did not meet it. In half an hour he was down on the bog--and in an hour after, just as a faint break in the east gave warning that the night was gone, he stood bruised and panting at the foot of the gorge on the second ridge. He was too dispirited to shout now. It had not been given to him after all to rescue his friend. He would have done better if he had never-- There was a big boulder just ahead, poised almost miraculously on its edge, on the sloping hill-side. It looked as if a moderate blast of wind would send it headlong to the bottom. But it had stood there for centuries, a shelter for sheep in winter from the snow and hail. What made Rollitt bound now in the direction of this rock, like a man shot? Surely not to admire a natural curiosity, or to seek shelter under its wing. No. He had found that his quest after all had not been in vain. There, curled up under the overhanging rock, lying one almost across the other for warmth, with cheek touching cheek, and Ashby's coat covering both, were Fisher minor and his chum--not dead, but sleeping soundly! CHAPTER NINETEEN. CORDER STRIKES A BLOW FOR LIBERTY. The absence of the juniors had excited no curiosity in either house till evening. It was a holiday, and though the rule was that even on a holiday no boy should go "out of touch," as it was called, that is, beyond a certain radius, without permission, it was not always enforced. The Modern seniors had every reason to guess the object of this prolonged absence. They had promised many things to the juniors when they caught them. It was not surprising, while things were as warm as they were, that the young rebels should give Fellsgarth a wide berth. As to the Classic juniors, no one was surprised at anything they did, in reason. But when "call-over" came and all nine names were returned absent (in addition to that of Rollitt and a few other habitual vagrants), fellows began to ask where they were. "Has any one seen Wally?" asked Yorke, who had just had the unusual experience of making his own tea and cooking his own eggs.