On the Li-ti-ping 27 
keep out the cold, while the rain poured steadily down and 
formed pools beneath me. 
I wondered what my men were doing and whether they 
had reported in the city that I was lost on the plateau. 
Perhaps soldiers had already started out to look for me— 
they could easily track me to the end of the path, but after 
that a regiment might scour these forests without finding 
any trace of me, for there was nothing to indicate which 
direction I had taken. 
The night seemed very long, but towards morning | 
dozed several times, and at length when I awoke it was 
already dawn, a cold grey light gradually diffusing itself 
over the sullen-looking sky. Clouds enveloped the forested 
hill-tops and lay in heavy masses in the deep valleys, but 
the rain had turned to snow which melted as it lay on the 
ground. Suchacheerless daybreak offered little encourage- 
ment to me in my task. 
However, I started off at once in order to get warm 
and shake off the numbing stiffness brought on by the past 
few hours of inactivity ; fortune seemed to smile on me this 
once, since by keeping the valley in view and heading 
straight for it so far as the country would allow, I struck a 
well-worn trail almost immediately. Climbing up and down 
over the endless hills for nearly three hours, I at last 
reached a point whence I could look straight down into 
the big valley, and solve the problem. 
The stream flowed eastwards—I was all wrong! 
This unfortunate truth had indeed been gradually 
asserting itself for some time past—the configuration of the 
mountains scarcely allowed of any other interpretation, 
though I was loth to admit it to myself; and disgusted 
beyond measure as I was at the annihilation of my vain 
hopes, I was not altogether taken aback. 
Meanwhile the path had been growing worse instead of 
better and presently came to an end again at the edge 
of the forest, a circumstance which greatly simplified 
matters for it left but one reasonable course of action. 
I must either break away again and try a new direction 
in the hope of striking another path, or find my way back 
to the starting point before I became more involved than I 
was already. 
