Few living things they saw there; up on the neck a few sheep were
grazing the scanty grass, but there was none to tend them; yet Face-
of-god deemed the sight of them good, for there must be men anigh who
owned them. For the rest, the whimbrel laughed across the mires;
high up in heaven a great eagle was hanging; once and again a grey
fox leapt up before them, and the heath-fowl whirred up from under
Face-of-god's feet. A raven who was sitting croaking on a rock in
that first dale stirred uneasily on his perch as he saw them, and
when they were passed flapped his wings and flew after them croaking
still.
Now they fared over that neck somewhat east, making but slow way
because the ground was so broken and rocky; and in another hour's
space Sure-foot led down-hill due east to where the stony neck sank
into another desolate miry heath still falling toward the east, but
whose further side was walled by a rampart of crags cleft at their
tops into marvellous-shapes, coal-black, ungrassed and unmossed.
Thitherward the hound led straight, and Gold-mane followed wondering:
as he drew near them he saw that they were not very high, the tallest
peak scant fifty feet from the face of the heath.
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