"To-night," continued Ned, "we ought to sleep high up in the
foothills over there."
With that inspiration the sore-footed and jaded lads made good time
going down the slope. Then another rivulet was encountered, in
which they bathed and by which they rested a spell. Alan would have
been glad to pass the night here, but Ned urged him on, and as night
fell again the hungry, exhausted boys found themselves far up on the
new slope. Then they slept again, restlessly and on the rocky
ground, for they had abandoned their blankets.
The boys did not wait for daylight. In the half dawn they were
afoot.
"Take another hitch in your belt, chum, and don't think of the
Placida." laughed Ned. "We'll make it all right, somehow."
Stiff in limb, their feet twitching with the pain of blisters, Ned
and Alan toiled slowly through the last of the pines and out into
the rocky higher slopes of the range. It was like climbing an
upright wall, Alan said, but the pain of going on was less than the
despair of giving up. A little after six o'clock Ned, ahead, pulled
himself breathless to the highest point.
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