The January day was already closing when Bonar began the ascent.  The climb was decidedly pleasant; the wintry air, the excitement coming from the spirit of adventure, the vigorous exercise—­all tended to raise the young man’s ardor, and he trod the upward path with the steady, swinging pace of a Highlander.

The moon had scarcely risen when clouds began to drift across the sky, and the wind became more boisterous.  The darkness increased, and soon it became almost impossible to discern the path.  Then cold, soft particles brushed his cheek, and he realized that snow was beginning to fall.  In a snowstorm he had no better prospect of finding his way to his bicycle down below than up to Davie Forbes’ house.  So he kept mechanically groping his way upward, although the storm had commenced in earnest now.

There was less difficulty in progressing while the pretty well-defined pathway could be kept to; but the falling snow began to obliterate its traces.  His entire surroundings soon became shut out from the man’s vision.  He moved on resolutely, although his face smarted and his eyes were blinded by the steadily descending snow, which surrounded him on all sides like a moving curtain of grayish white.  He owned to himself that it was impossible to proceed, but what was he to do?  To return was just as impossible!

Fortune at last favored him.  Staggering through the wind and snow of the ever-increasing storm, he ran unexpectedly upon a lofty wall of rock looking to him like a high cliff.  He had evidently lost the path, for here was an insurmountable obstacle.  Clinging to the rough surface, he cautiously felt his way along the rock for some yards.  He was still ascending, but the ground was rough and piled with small stones, which had crumbled off from the main wall and lay in heaps beneath it.  He knew enough about Scottish mountains to expect to find an opening in the wall large enough to enable him to creep into some kind of shelter; he was not disappointed, for soon he came upon a crevice—­not deep enough to be called a cave, but affording some temporary relief from the storm, which had by this time assumed a furious aspect.

The retreat happened to be under the lee of the rock, so that although it had little depth, he was protected from the violence of the storm; the relief was great after the fatiguing struggle he had been undergoing.  He managed to strike a match and look at his watch; it was only six o’clock.  Had he to pass the night in that chill and dreary region?

Gruesome anecdotes rushed tormentingly to memory.  It was but last winter that he had read of the finding of a man’s body, stark and cold, not fifty yards from his own threshold; he had fallen helpless, faint from incessant struggling through the snow-drifts and too weak to make his cries for help heard above the rushing of the wind and the swish of the snow on the window behind which his terrified wife was anxiously awaiting his coming.