He was on a stony path winding downwards with a rocky wall.
It did not sound like goblins so he crept forward carefully. He had just made up his mind that it was his duty, that he must turn back-and very miserable he felt about it-when he heard voices. He wondered whether he ought not, now he had the magic ring, to go back into the horrible, horrible, tunnels and look for his friends. He still wandered on, out of the little high valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond but all the while a very uncomfortable thought was growing inside him. 'I seem to have got right to the other side of the Misty Mountains, right to the edge of the Land Beyond! Where and O where can Gandalf and the dwarves have got to? I only hope to goodness they are not still back there in the power of the goblins!' Then he looked forward and could see before him only ridges and slopes falling towards lowlands and plains glimpsed occasionally between the trees. Their shadows fell across Bilbo's path, and he looked back. He wandered on and on, till the sun began to sink westwards-behind the mountains. He had lost hood, cloak, food, pony, his buttons and his friends. Bilbo had escaped the goblins, but he did not know where he was.
