Tom had his rifle and plenty of cartridges, but there was really nothing to shoot but the lovely gulls, and the boy was not so cruel as to touch one of these.
So they wandered on and on and upwards, until they came to a level spot all one lovely carpet of small wild flowers.

Poppies of many colours grew here, mosses, yellow stone-crop, and grasses of every hue, but they agreed not to pick any until they should be returning.

Still higher they went up the mountain-side, when suddenly little Pansy exclaimed: "Look, Tom! look, Ara! the sea is all flied away!" [Illustration] Tom stared behind him and stood aghast.
A huge wall of fog or white mist had quite covered the ocean and even the shore, shutting them out from view, and was now slowly advancing towards them.

But that was not the worst, for a low, moaning wind came on before it, and flakes of snow began to fall.
It was easy for Tom to say: "Let us get back at once to the beach, the boat must be there already." They had come miles from the bay.

Before they could walk half the distance back, the snow-fog had swallowed them, and it was no wonder that they lost their way, and became cold and faint and dizzy.
Both Aralia and Pansy began to cry now, and at last sank down among the dry snow, unable to move another yard.
Tom was a boy of great courage.