The Hobbit

can offer shall be yours, and we trust to your gratitude when your kingdom is regained.”
    So one day, although autumn was now getting far on, and winds were cold, and leaves were falling fast, three large boats left
     Lake-town, laden with rowers, dwarves, Mr. Baggins, and many provisions. Horses and ponies had been sent round by circuitous
     paths to meet them at their appointed landing-place. The Master and his councillors bade them farewell from the great steps
     of the town-hall that went down to the lake. People sang on the quays and out of windows. The white oars dipped and splashed,
     and off they went north up the lake on the last stage of their long journey. The only person thoroughly unhappy was Bilbo.

Chapter
XI
ON THE DOORSTEP
    In two days going they rowed right up the Long Lake and passed out into the River Running, and now they could all see the
     Lonely Mountain towering grim and tall before them. The stream was strong and their going slow. At the end of the third day,
     some miles up the river, they drew in to the left or western bank and disembarked. Here they were joined by the horses with
     other provisions and necessaries and the ponies for their own use that had been sent to meet them. They packed what they could
     on the ponies and the rest was made into a store under a tent, but none of the men of the town would stay with them even for
     the night so near the shadow of the Mountain.
    “Not at any rate until the songs have come true!” said they. It was easier to believe in the Dragon and less easy to believe
     in Thorin in these wild parts. Indeed their stores had no need of any guard, for all the land was desolate and empty. So their
     escort left them, making off swiftly down the river and the shoreward paths, although the night was already drawing on.
    They spent a cold and lonely night and their spirits fell. The next day they set out again. Balin and Bilbo rode behind, each
     leading another pony heavily laden beside him; the others were some way ahead picking out a slow road, for there were no paths. They made north-west, slanting away from the River Running, and drawing ever nearer
     and nearer to a great spur of the Mountain that was flung out southwards towards them.
    It was a weary journey, and a quiet and stealthy one. There was no laughter or song or sound of harps, and the pride and hopes
     which had stirred in their hearts at the singing of old songs by the lake died away to a plodding gloom. They knew that they
     were drawing near to the end of their journey, and that it might be a very horrible end. The land about them grew bleak and
     barren, though once, as Thorin told them, it had been green and fair. There was little grass, and before long there was neither
     bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the
     Dragon, and they were come at the waning of the year.
    They reached the skirts of the Mountain all the same without meeting any danger or any sign of the Dragon other than the wilderness
     he had made about his lair. The Mountain lay dark and silent before them and ever higher above them. They made their first
     camp on the western side of the great southern spur, which ended in a height called Ravenhill. On this there had been an old
     watch-post; but they dared not climb it yet, it was too exposed.
    Before setting out to search the western spurs of the Mountain for the hidden door, on which all their hopes rested, Thorin
     sent out a scouting expedition to spy out the land to the South where the Front
    Gate stood. For this purpose he chose Balin and Fili and Kili, and with them went Bilbo. They marched under the grey and silent
     cliffs to the feet of Ravenhill. There the river, after winding a wide loop over the valley of Dale, turned from the Mountain
     on its road to the Lake, flowing swift and noisily. Its bank was bare and rocky, tall and steep above the stream; and gazing
     out from it over the narrow water, foaming and splashing among many boulders, they could see in the wide valley shadowed by
     the Mountain’s arms the grey ruins of ancient houses, towers, and walls.
    “There lies all that is left of Dale,” said Balin. “The mountain’s sides were green with woods and all the sheltered valley
     rich and pleasant in the days when the bells rang in that town.” He looked both sad and grim as he said this: he had been
     one of Thorin’s companions on the day the Dragon