Now, Mr.Fitzgibbon, if you keep with me, between us we ought to find the road." The plan seemed a good one, but it was difficult to follow.

The fall of the ground was so slight that Ralph and the officer often differed as to whether they were going up or down, and it was only by separating and taking short runs right and left, forward or backward, that they arrived at any conclusion, and even then often doubted whether they were right.

The shouting as the long line proceeded was prodigious, and must have astonished any stray animals that might have been grazing among the hills.

So bewildering was the fog that the men sometimes went back to the men behind them instead of forward to the men in front, and long pauses were necessitated before they got right again.

Ralph, finding the cause of the delays, passed the word down for the first man to keep on shouting "number one," the second "number two," and so on, and this facilitated matters.