The sun was still two hours high in the west.

There was no wind, and Wollaston was like a mirror; yet in the still air was the clean, cool tang of early autumn, and shoreward the world reached out in ridges and billows of tinted forests, with a September haze pulsing softly over them, fleecy as the misty shower of a lady's powder puff.

It was destined to be a memorable afternoon for Peter, a going down of the sun that he would never forget as long as he lived.
Yet there was no warning of the thing impending, and his eyes saw only the mystery and wonder of the big world, and his ears heard only the drowsing murmur of it, and his nose caught only the sweet scents of cedars and balsams and of flowering and ripening things.

Straight ahead, beyond the white shore line, was a low ridge, and this ridge--where it was not purple and black with the evergreen--was red with the crimson blotches of mountain-ash berries, and patches of fire flowers that glowed like flame in the setting sun.
From out of this paradise, as they drew near to it, came softly the voice and song of birds and the chatter of red squirrels.

A big jay was screeching over it all, and between the first ridge and the second--which rose still higher beyond it--a cloud of crows were circling excitedly over a mother black bear and her half grown cubs as they feasted on the red ash berries.