It was rather like the feeling when you wake up suddenly in the night and cannot remember the position of the door or the window. They walked on like this for what seemed like hours, but which was only five minutes. Macbeth was a misery, and although he wagged his tail feebly when addressed, the spirit seemed to have gone out of him. Once he pulled Mary away to the right, and she followed him without thinking. Dickie went on ahead. Suddenly she realized she was alone and shouted wildly, "Dickie! DICKIE! Where are you? I'm lost!"

But he was only about ten yards away, and waited for her.

"Better hold on to each other," he said.

Whether or not they did keep to the track they had used on the way up they never knew, but after a little while they felt the ground sloping downhill under their feet. "We've done it, Mary. We're real path-finders and trackers all right. All we've got to do now is to go on downhill, and we'll find that old witch and have some supper."

Mary's teeth were chattering. "C-c-c-come on then. Let's hurry, Dickie. I feel beastly."

And this is where they went wrong. There was no proper path to follow, and although by going steadily downhill they soon reached a few trees, they could not tell whether they had been there before. Macbeth seemed to try to lead them sometimes, but his trail usually finished up in a briar bush or at a rabbit-hole. Mary and he were in front on one of these excursions which led them steadily downhill when, out of the white fog, something large and black loomed out at them. She stopped so suddenly that Dickie blundered into her.

"What is it?" he whispered.

Whatever it was it remained still and silent shrouded in the fog. For the last hundred yards there had been no trees or brambles, and this great bulk was particularly frightening as the twins stood under it. Mary let go Macbeth's lead without realizing it, and the little dog sauntered ahead without fear.

Then Dickie laughed. "Gosh! We're chumps, Mary. Don't you see what it is? It's a rock!"

And so it was. A big outcrop of rock bursting out of the hillside and hanging forward over the close turf which was dry in its shadow. Mary sat down with her back to it, and pulled Macbeth on to her lap.

"Come on, Mackie! We're all wet and cold and dirty, so it doesn't matter. Let's keep each other warm... You come too, Dickie! Let's have a rest."