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Updated: May 6, 2025
"When are you going to tell us the story of the burning of the Road House?" interrupted Ham. "Well," replied Mr. Allen, "if I don't succeed in getting Dad to tell it to you himself, I'll tell it when we stop on top of that hogsback to rest," pointing to a great, round hill in the canyon. "Do you think Dad will really tell us any of his stories?" queried Willis.
Another scramble upon a highly inclined hogsback, where weather- worn brown-black granite, protruded bone-like from the clay flesh, placed us at the outlying village of Kinbembu, with its line of palms; here the aneroid showed 1,322 feet.
Now, the mass of chalk which has been carried away began behind you, at the Hogsback, and the line of chalk-hills which runs to Boxhill, and stretched hundreds of feet above your head as you stand on Hind Head or Leith Hill, right over the old Weald of Sussex to the chalk of the South Downs. And out of the scourings of that vast mass of chalk was our gravel-pit made.
Through the dark avenues of fir trees we canter to the temple, a little summerhouse on a promontory in the sea of wood that lies below, and we stand admiring the far blue distant view away to the Hogsback and the South Downs beyond Basingstoke as the hounds begin their work.
When the pack saddles were on, and the pack bags of food adjusted on either side, the blanket rolls piled high on top, they were ready to begin the journey, "Donkeys are a good deal like some men," observed Ham as the little column came to the base of the hogsback, "they always have to travel by freight."
At the top of the hogsback that over-looked Bruin Inn the fellows sat down to rest. They were back in familiar territory, now, and the cabin quest was nearly over. "Of course, the very first thing to do," Ham was saying, "is to get in stone and get our fireplace built before the frost comes.
The day chosen for their trip turned out to be bitter cold; but the other fellows were depending on them, and they must not fail. They found it very difficult to climb the hogsback because of the snow, so when they reached the railroad they decided to follow it to Fairview rather than attempt the canyon trail. As they plodded on they grew very cold.
How he wandered about the old town in the dusk, and up to the Hogsback to see the little lamps below and the little stars above come out one after another; how he returned through the yellow-lit streets to the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern and supped bravely in the commercial room a Man among Men; how he joined in the talk about flying-machines and the possibilities of electricity, witnessing that flying-machines were "dead certain to come," and that electricity was "wonderful, wonderful"; how he went and watched the billiard playing and said, "Left 'em" several times with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and how he got out his cycling map and studied it intently, are things that find no mention here.
"And if you ever receive the completed message," added Ham, "it usually says, 'Six weeks in the hospital." At the top of the hogsback the party separated into two groups. The one under Mr. Allen continued on up the trail with the two donkeys, while the other, under Mr. Dean, took the railroad, walking around by Fairview, to see if their equipment had arrived.
On the hogsback the snow had drifted badly, completely obliterating the trail. It seemed like it took hours to climb that rugged hill. Twice the donkeys slipped from the trail, floundered in the fluffy drifts, and then lay down. Twice they both refused to go another step; then darkness the black darkness of a stormy winter night, settled about them just as they entered the Park.
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