About eight in the
evening
Next a smoky fog of clouds covered the whole region densely , and we took to the railway-ties to keep from getting lost . Sometimes we slopped along in a narrow path on the left-hand side of the track , but by and by when the fog blew aside a little and we saw that we were treading the rampart of a precipice and that our left elbows were projecting over a perfectly boundless and bottomless vacancy , we gasped , and jumped for the ties again . The night shut down , dark and drizzly and cold . About eight in the evening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which led up a very steep rise to the left . We took it , and as soon as we had got far enough from the railway to render the finding it again an impossibility , the fog shut down on us once more . We were in a bleak , unsheltered place , now , and had to trudge right along , in order to keep warm , though we rather expected to go over a precipice , sooner or later . About nine o'clock we made an important discovery -- that we were not in any path .