It came
of my fingers resting, as they lay in my pocket, on the fragments
of the orange sachet; which, without having any particular design
in my mind, I had taken care to bring with me. I had torn the
sachet into four pieces--four corners. As I played mechanically
with them, one of my fingers fitted into one, as into a glove; a
second finger into another. And the plan came.
Before I could move in it, however, I had to wait until we
stopped to bait the flagging horses, which we did about noon at
the head of the valley. Then, pretending to drink from the
stream, I managed to secure unseen a handful of pebbles, slipping
them into the same pocket with the morsels of stuff. On getting
to horse again, I carefully fitted a pebble, not too tightly,
into the largest scrap, and made ready for the attempt.
The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me; the other two knaves
behind. The road at this stage favoured me, for the valley,
which drained the bare uplands that lay between the lower hills
and the base of the real mountains, had become wide and shallow.
Here were no trees, and the path was a mere sheep-track covered
with short, crisp grass, and running sometimes on this bank of
the stream and sometimes on that.
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