Helen knew she felt some of the physical stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.
It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from which patches of scrubby trees--cedars, Dale called them--straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.
"They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays longest," said Dale.
They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another foot-hill.

Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to answer Bo's wild exclamations.
Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged line of forest that rose black over range after range, at last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain, sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.
"Oh, beautiful!" cried Bo.

"But they ought to be called Black Mountains." "Old Baldy, there, is white half the year," replied Dale.
"Look back an' see what you say," suggested Roy.
The girls turned to gaze silently.

Helen imagined she looked down upon the whole wide world.

How vastly different was the desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize distance and space.
"See thet little green spot," said Roy, pointing.