HELEN TAKES THE LEAD Festing was glad to sit down when he reached the bottom of a chasm that divided the summits of two towering fells.

He had crossed the higher of the two without much trouble except for a laborious scramble over large, rough stones, but the ascent of the other threatened to be difficult.
It rose in front, a wall of splintered crag, seamed by deep gullies, for the strata was tilted up nearly perpendicular.

All the gullies were climbed by expert mountaineers, but this needed a party and a rope, and the other way, round the shoulder of the great rock, was almost as hard.
Festing knew the easiest plan was to descend a neighboring hollow, from which he would find a steep path to the top.
Lighting his pipe, he glanced at his watch.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and having been on his feet since breakfast, he felt tired.
The nails he had had driven into his light American boots hurt his feet, and the boots were much the worse for the last few days' wear.

Muriel had carefully planned the trip, and then delayed his start by a week because she wanted to take him to a tennis party.