And each man there had his skids and his bow and
quiver, and whatso other weapon, as short-sword, or wood-knife, or
axe, seemed good to him.
So they went out-a-gates, and clomb the stairway in the cliff which
led to the ancient watch-tower: for it was on the lower slopes of
the fells which lay near to the Weltering Water that they looked to
find the elks, and this was the nighest road thereto. When they had
gotten to the top they lost no time, but went their ways nearly due
east, making way easily where there were but scattered trees close to
the lip of the sheer cliffs.
They went merrily on their skids over the close-lying snow, and were
soon up on the great shoulders of the fells that went up from the
bank of the Weltering Water: at noon they came into a little dale
wherein were a few trees, and there they abided to eat their meat,
and were very merry, making for themselves tables and benches of the
drifted snow, and piling it up to windward as a defence against the
wind, which had now arisen, little but bitter from the south-east; so
that some, and they the wisest, began to look for foul weather:
wherefore they tarried the shorter while in the said dale or hollow.
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