Looking at the lonely half-rotted wooden pile on the shore, Bilbo gave up the idea of ​​using it almost as soon as he saw it.

Without it, judging from the dilapidated appearance of this wooden pile, it is too severely corroded by the natural weather in the wild.

While squatting aside to observe, the hobbit with good eyesight couldn't help but see something new on the other side of the river from this novel low perspective!

The next second, Thorin heard Bilbo, the snitch in the team, shouting happily: "I saw a small boat! The question is, why did it stop on the other side of the river?!"

In his words, Bilbo was full of regrets because he really couldn't think of any way to cross the river in his little mind at the moment...

However, this also means that it seems that they are trapped here due to the problem of being unable to cross the river - this is by no means a good situation. Spending too many nights on the strange river bank in the dark forest can easily be attacked. This is all willing

Dolph's warning to them before they parted.

"Are you sure there is a ship parked on the other side? How far is it specifically?" Thorin tentatively raised his head and looked into the distance, and soon he gave up the useless attempt of relying on his own eyesight.

"It's not too far, about 15 yards!"

"Fifteen yards! That's quite a distance. Now, we can't jump or swim across such a long distance."

After complaining about the long distance, Thorin looked at the dark river as black as ink.

In any case, almost everyone present had a strange sense of repulsion about the possible dangers in this strange river.

Out of instinct, everyone unanimously decided not to get involved in the river rashly until they knew what dangers there were, let alone swim across the river in close contact with the water.

After a moment of silence, Bilbo felt that this was not an option, and he took the initiative to ask: "Maybe we can throw a rope over there and give it a try. You know, don't we have hooks and ropes?"

"What's the use? Even if we can hook the ship, it must be tied up."

"I don't think it's tied up," said Bilbo. "Although I can't see clearly because of the angle of the light at this distance, it seems to me that the ship is just docked on the shore. That bank over there

The sides are very low and just meet the river.”

"Dori is the strongest, and Fili is the youngest and has the best eyesight," Thorin said. "Fili come here and try to see if he can see the ship Mr. Baggins mentioned."

Fili thought he could see, so when he was looking in that direction, the people next to him brought him a rope. They brought several ropes and tied a rope that was originally used for

The iron hook that fixed the backpack. Fili held the iron hook, tried to grasp the sense of balance, and then threw it across the river.

It fell into the water with a splash! "Not far enough!" Bilbo said, looking at the other side: "If you drop a few more feet, you will fall into the boat. Try again. If you just touch the wet rope, I think

The magic of the river cannot harm you yet."

Fili could only reluctantly reach out and slowly pull the hook back. After confirming that there would be no serious danger if it came into contact with the river water, he mustered up the courage to throw the hook rope out again.

"It's hooked! Work harder, come on!" Bilbo said: "I saw the hook rope hooked to the side of the boat. Work harder, we are almost done!"

As Bilbo saw, the hooked rope that everyone had high hopes for did work with one blow. Fili pulled hard, and the boat slowly floated towards the river bank where everyone was sitting with the power transmitted by the rope.

Seeing that Bilbo's plan to hook the ship with the hook rope was successful, a loud cheer burst out from the crowd.

Everyone immediately patted Bilbo's shoulders excitedly and laughed and praised the Hobbit's wit. This undoubtedly greatly satisfied Bilbo's honor and self-esteem.

"Okay, everyone, please calm down. If you don't want to attract wild beasts in the forest to attack, then be careful and don't be surprised!" After scolding the dwarves to restore quiet and order, Thorin

Then he nodded with satisfaction.

"I have a question," Bilbo raised his hand curiously. "Who wants to take the boat over first? It feels like it can only carry three to four people at a time."

"I'll go over to explore the situation first, and you'll follow me when I send you a safe signal!" Thorin took over the most dangerous task of exploring the path without hesitation: "Bilbo, you and Balin are coming in the second wave...

.The rest of the people will come according to my next group..."

However, this time, Bombur, the fattest among the dwarves, raised objections.

"Why am I the last one again? I hate always being the last one," Bombur said, "Should it be someone else this time?"

"Don't be so nagging, Bombur. You're too heavy. I'm afraid this boat can only carry you alone at a time. Stop quibbling. People who quibble too much will suffer bad luck!" Bombard's opinion was raised.

It was unanimously rejected by everyone.

"Wait a minute, we don't have oars for rowing. How can we drive the boat back to pick up people after crossing the river?" Bilbo then asked another question.

"Give me another rope and another hook," said Fili. When everyone was ready, he threw the rope into the sky as hard as he could. When there was a crisp sound, everyone thought it was just this throw of the hook.

Successfully landed on the other side of the river.

"Let's start crossing the river," said Fili: "Every time you take a boat, one person needs to hold the rope to the other side. As for the other person, holding the hook, he is waiting to hook the boat at any time. He uses the hook rope repeatedly so many times.

Just pull it back and forth."

After listening to Feili's explanation, everyone thought it was a good idea worth trying.

So everyone quickly crossed this strange stream that at first glance seemed to be contaminated by some magical curse or unknown magical element.

The entire river-crossing operation can almost be said to be very smooth - this is not easy for the Gushan expedition team, which has had many disasters along the way. Generally speaking, no one knows which one will arrive first, the accident or the next day.

Just when Bilbo was rejoicing that this seemingly thrilling crossing of the river was about to be a complete success, Bombur, the last fat dwarf to cross the river, became the "accident" that no one expected.

At the time of the incident, the dwarf Bombur was grumbling and complaining, standing upright with his fat body and preparing to jump from the boat to the shore. Who knows, maybe everyone's unanimous joke on his bad luck had an effect. Anyway, bad luck comes to him like this.

Got him.

A figure that looked like a wild deer suddenly appeared from the forest. It rushed into the group of dwarves, knocked them away, and prepared to leap to the other side.

However, this unexpected figure that suddenly appeared could not safely jump to the other side.

In the face of sudden threats, Thorin can be regarded as the only warrior among the people who showed a calm spirit.

Almost immediately, he adjusted his posture, bent his bow and drew an arrow, preparing to deal with any enemies that hindered the boat from landing.

After a moment of aiming, Thorin shot an arrow at the leaping beast with lightning speed. After the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground, the creature that jumped to the other side of the river could no longer make any sound -

-Bilbo looked at its motionless body and nodded. It must be dead!

Just when Bilbo was about to praise Thorin's superb archery skills, the scream of the dwarf Fili on the side made everyone immediately nervous.

"Uncle Bomb fell into the water! Help him, Uncle Bomb is about to drown!" Faced with the sudden change, Fili panicked.

When everyone ran to the river, they could see Bombur's ridiculous-looking red knitted hat floating on the water.

Under Thorin's strong unified command, the dwarves hurriedly threw a thick rope with a hook in the direction of the forehead where the hat was.

Fortunately, Bombur grabbed the rope and everyone worked together to pull him to the shore. He was soaked from head to toe, but that was not the worst.

The strange thing is that as soon as Bombur landed on the shore, he closed his eyes and fell asleep before his head could stand up. No matter how everyone yelled and yelled, he still slept like a dead pig.

Faced with this rather strange scene, everyone could only look down at the initiator of everything - the fat dwarf Bombur with a fat body and difficulty in moving. At this time, everyone invariably cursed the bad luck since the beginning of the adventure journey.

.

The small boat that had barely landed on the shore in the waves drifted away. Now they could no longer take the boat and run back to the other side of the river to see what kind of creature the real culprit was that attacked them.

Not long after, a series of low hissing sounds of hounds sounded, followed by a melodious sound of horns that floated in the wind and reached everyone's ears.

Hearing the long-lost horn sound in this strange dark forest, everyone fell silent - the last time they heard a similar horn sound seemed to be more than ten days ago when everyone was attacked by orcs and other dark creatures under the Misty Mountains.

They are chasing after him relentlessly!

In order to avoid a head-on collision with the enemy, Thorin took the initiative to order everyone to rest where they were for a while.

Of course, at this tense moment when the enemy may attack you at any time, no one really dares to rest with an absolutely relaxed expression.

Almost every member that Bilbo noticed had weapons and a few pieces of armor clenched in their hands.

Of course, the exception was the dwarf Bombur, who was still deeply asleep. He seemed to have fallen into some kind of sweet dream, with a smile on his face, which was completely inconsistent with the tense atmosphere of preparation for war that pervaded the entire expedition team.

Suddenly, several white wild deer appeared on the trail in front of them, a tall female deer and several young deer. Their pure white fur formed a strong contrast with the black deer before.

Like the uninvited guests who knocked Bombur off the boat before, the timing and method of the appearance of these wild deer were too clever. The already tense dwarves instinctively raised their bows and arrows to shoot at the group of wild deer.

go.

There is no doubt that shooting arrows at nimble wild deer is not a good and easy idea.

"Stop, don't waste arrows!" Thorin shouted in an attempt to stop the wasteful behavior of his companions.

But it was too late. The dwarves, who were frightened and overreacted instinctively, had already wasted their last arrows. Later in the journey, they would lose the advantage of long-range archery attacks.

That night, the morale of the group was very low, and in the following days their mood hit rock bottom.

They had crossed the magic stream, but the path after the stream seemed to be the same winding road, and the forest had not changed in any way. If they understood the significance of the hunt and the appearance of the white deer, they would know that they were finally approaching the east end of the forest.

Soon, as long as they persist, they will find that the trees are getting rarer and the sunshine is getting brighter and brighter.

The bad situation is far from over.

In addition to feeling heavy, the group also had to carry the heavy Bomber on their backs.

In order to maintain the required traveling speed, it is usually necessary to divide four people into two groups to take turns carrying the fat dwarf Bombur, and the others must help carry those people's backpacks.

If it weren't for the fact that the weight of the backpack had been greatly reduced, they might not have been able to complete this task; and compared with the food, the giggling Bombur was really not an inspiring burden.

Within a few days, they once again fell into the tragic situation of running out of food and ammunition. As for the forest that should have produced edible mushrooms, all that was left to the dwarves were mushrooms and strange-smelling grass leaves.

After crossing the magic stream for four days, they came to an area surrounded by cypress trees. At first, they were quite happy about this change, because there were no longer so dense weeds underneath, and the shadows became much sparser. The surroundings began

With some green light, in some places, you can even see the scenery on both sides of the trail.

However, this green light only allowed them to see rows of trees, like endless stone pillars in a deep tomb. The air began to flow and there was a special sound; but this made people feel sad.

It feels like they are trampling on the decaying leaves that have been piling up on the ground for countless autumns.

Bombur was still deep in a strange state of deep drowsiness, and everyone who had to take turns carrying his heavy body became more and more tired. If you add in the occasional ethereal and creepy sound in the ears, the wind blows.

With a chuckle, the environment in the entire dense forest became even worse.

The chuckle was so ethereal and evil, completely different from that of the orcs, but the sound was still enough to make all those who listened to it feel deeply uneasy, and thus had the idea of ​​staying away from this ghost place forever.

Two days later, they found that the trail began to slope downwards, and soon they came to a valley full of oak trees.

"Does this damn forest never end?" Thorin said: "Can anyone climb to the top of the tree to see what's going on outside? I think we can only choose the tallest tree to try our luck.

Got it!"

Of course, the so-called "someone" is Bilbo. The reason for choosing Bilbo is very simple. If a tree climber wants to be able to stick his head out of the woods, then he must be light enough to let the top branches bear him.

weight.

The poor hobbit had never had much experience in climbing trees, but everyone still pushed him onto an ancient oak tree by the roadside, half forcing and half persuading him. He could only climb up with all his strength.

In order not to disappoint his companions, Bilbo struggled through the thick branches, and was hit several times by branches in the process.
Chapter completed!