Page 146 - The Hobbit

that pleasant time now seemed years ago. They were alone in the perilous waste

without hope of further help. They were at the end of their journey, but as far as
ever, it seemed, from the end of their quest. None of them had much spirit left.
Now strange to say Mr. Baggins had more than the others. He would often

borrow Thorin's map and gaze at it, pondering over the runes and the message of
the moon-letters Elrond had read. It was he that made the dwarves begin the
dangerous search on the western slopes for the secret door. They moved their
camp then to a long valley, narrower than the great dale in the South where the

Gates of the river stood, and walled with lower spurs of the Mountain. Two of
these here thrust forward west from the main mass in long steep-sided ridges that
fell ever downwards towards the plain. On this western side there were fewer signs

of the dragon's marauding feet, and there was some grass for their ponies. From
this western camp, shadowed all day by cliff and wall until the sun began to sink
towards the forest, day by day they toiled in parties searching for paths up the
mountain-side. If the map was true, somewhere high above the cliff at the valley's

head must stand the secret door. Day by day they came back to their camp without
success.
But at last unexpectedly they found what they were seeking. Fili and Kili and

the hobbit went back one day down the valley and scrambled among the tumbled
rocks at its southern corner. About midday, creeping behind a great stone that
stood alone like a pillar, Bilbo came on what looked like rough steps going
upwards. Following these excitedly he and the dwarves found traces of a narrow

track, often lost, often rediscovered, that wandered on to the top of the southern
ridge and brought them at last to a still narrower ledge, which turned north across
the face of the Mountain. Looking down they saw that they were at the top of the
cliff at the valley's head and were gazing down on to their own camp below.

Silently, clinging to the rocky wall on their right, they went in single file along the
ledge, till the wall opened and they turned into a little steep-walled bay, grassy-
floored, still and quiet. Its entrance which they had found could not be seen from
below because of the overhang of the cliff, nor from further off because it was so

small that it looked like a dark crack and no more. It was not a cave and was open
to the sky above; but at its inner end a flat wall rose up that in the lower I part,
close to the ground, was as smooth and upright as mason's work, but without a

joint or crevice to be seen.
"No sign was there of post or lintel or threshold, nor any sign of bar or bolt or
key-hole; yet they did not doubt that they had found the door at last.