Great Northern?. Arthur Ransome

the hill to the north of them. “Up there we’ll be able to see all ways at once.”

      “If we work north-west,” said Dick.

      “No,” said Roger. “Much better go straight up, and be able to look all round.”

      “This is the best day of the whole cruise,” said Titty, and climbed on.

      “I know why,” said Dorothea. “It’s because it wasn’t planned.”

      That was it. For the four able seamen, as well as for Nancy and John, the cruise had been too successful. The Sea Bear, sailing from port to port, from one famous anchorage to another, had been as regular as a liner. Everything had gone according to programme, and that programme had not allowed for such days as this, with four able seamen exploring by themselves and their elders thoroughly busy and out of the way.

      “Indian trail,” exclaimed Dorothea a minute or two later, and stopped short, looking at a trodden path between clumps of heather. The others joined her.

      “No footprints,” said Titty.

      “Sheep-track,” said Roger.

      “Deer,” said Dick. “Look at that mark. The hoof’s much bigger than a sheep’s.”

      “John said he thought he saw a stag early this morning when the fog cleared.”

      “We’ll see them drinking their fill at eve,” said Titty.

      “At those tarns perhaps,” said Dick, “unless the chart was wrong and there aren’t any.”

      “If they’re marked on the chart they’ll be there,” said Titty. “We’ll see them as soon as we get a bit higher.”

      They climbed on, with the world about them growing wider as they climbed. Looking southward they could see how the coast curved out towards the distant Head. White crests of foam flecked the blue sea.

      “You’d never think it was blowing like this when you’re down in our creek,” said Titty, leaning against a gust of wind that blew her hair past her cheeks. “Dot’s jolly lucky to have pigtails.”

      “I’m luckier,” said Roger, “and so’s Dick, except for his goggles.” In the harder gusts, Dick was putting a hand to his spectacles which shook in the wind so that he found it hard to see through them. “Come on, Dick. Don’t let’s stop before we get to the top.”

      “Coming,” said Dick who, besides having trouble with his spectacles, was finding it hard to steady his telescope while he searched as much of the valley as he could see for a sign of the two lochs. “I can see deer,” he said suddenly.

      “Where?” said Dorothea.

      “A whole lot of them, grazing like cows.”

      “We’ll see them better from higher up,” said Roger. “Race you to the top.”

      He raced alone. The others plodded after him. Dorothea had picked a small purple flower and was showing it to Dick.

      “It’s a butterwort, I think,” said Dick. “But I don’t know for certain.”

      “Sticky leaves,” said Dorothea.

      “Fly-catcher,” said Dick, stooping over a small patch of flowers.

      “Roger,” called Titty. “Wait a minute. We ought to keep together,” she said to the others. “We’re in unknown country and anything may happen.”

      “Something has,” said Dorothea. “Look at him.”

      Roger had reached the top of the hill. He was urgently beckoning to them, pointing at something close beside him and beckoning again. He was not shouting. That in itself was enough to tell them that he was not simply trying to hurry them.

      “He may have seen enemies,” said Titty.

      “What is he doing?” said Dorothea.

      Roger, after one more bout of beckoning, had dropped to the ground. A moment later he had disappeared. It was not as if he had crawled on over the top of the hill. He had not seemed to be moving. One moment they had seen him crouching on the ground with his back towards them. The next moment he had gone. He simply was not there.

      “Come on,” said Titty, and raced up the steep slope of the hill. “He must have found a cave. Come on.”

      “The top of the hill’s a queer shape,” said Dick.

      “It’s like … Dick … I know what it is,” panted Dorothea.

      They could all see it now, a green, turf-covered mound on the very top of the hill, and, as Titty came breathlessly up to it, Roger came scrambling out.

      “What about this?” he said.

      “It’s a Pict-house,” said Dorothea. “A real one. Prehistoric, like that one they showed us on Skye.”

      “Well, nobody showed us this one,” said Roger. “I found it myself.” That day on Skye had been a wasted one. Well-meaning natives had shown them things and they had felt more like trippers than explorers.

      “What’s it like inside?” said Titty, stooping to look into the hole out of which Roger had crawled.

      “The hole doesn’t go very far,” said Roger. “It’s a square sort of tunnel. Stone walls. Beastly dark.”

      “I say,” said Dorothea. “How would it be if I made my robber chief prehistoric? He’d wear skins and live up here and see the Danish longships coming into our bay.”

      Dick had just glanced at the tunnel, and then climbed the steep side of the mound.

      “I thought so,” he said. “The roof’s fallen in. It’s just like that one in Skye. A room in the middle and a tunnel for getting in and out …” He stopped suddenly. “There are the lochs!” he said, and, thinking of his Divers, was for setting off straight across country.

      “Father’ll want to know about it,” said Dorothea.

      Dick, after one more glance at the lochs in the valley, pulled out his pocket-book.

      A PAGE FROM DICK’S NOTEBOOK SHOWING THE SHAPE OF THE “PICTHOUSE”

      Dorothea, Titty and Roger had all climbed up beside him. The middle of the mound was like a shallow saucer where it had fallen in, perhaps centuries before. Standing in the dip they looked round over the edge.

      “It’s like being on the top of the whole world,” said Titty.

      On one side they looked out over the sea to Scotland, southward to the Head, northward to another great cape jutting out. Far out to sea were the black specks of two fishing boats, each with a long wisp of black smoke blowing from it. Looking down to the cove where they had left the Sea Bear, they could see the top of her mast. The rest of her was hidden close under the steep shore. They could see both inlets with the rocky spit between them, and then rolling moorland stretching towards big grey hills. Here and there were lochs. They could see part of one of the lochs, that had raised hopes in Dick, and the whole of the other. Looking up the valley they could see that there was a ridge to the south of it and another to the north rising slowly towards the mountains. Along the slopes of the northern ridge they caught glimpses of a cart track that seemed to come from the head of the valley and, not far away, turned sharply into a gap on the skyline.

      “Crouch down,” said Titty. “When you’re on the bottom you can’t see anything but sky. Not even the hills. If we were hiding in it, nobody could see us, unless they came here and climbed up to look in over the edge.”

      The others crouched beside her. It was true. There was nothing to be seen but the great circle of blue sky overhead, from which the last white scraps of cloud had blown away.

      “Buzzard,”