46897    Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge, and skirted a noisy stream, which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the grey boulders.

46898    Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir.

46899    At every turning Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions.

46900    To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the country-side, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year.

46901    Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed.

46902    The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation - sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

46903    'Hullo!' cried Dr Mortimer, 'what is this?'

46904    A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us.

46905    On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle poised ready over his forearm.

46906    He was watching the road along which, we travelled.

46907    'What is this, Perkins?' asked Dr Mortimer.

46908    Our driver half turned in his seat.

46909    'There's a convict escaped from Princetown, sir.

46910    He's been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no sight of him yet.

46911    The farmers about here don't like it, sir, and that's a fact.'