Then they came to splendid fields of grain and "afalfa,"-- a cereal quite new to them, with broad, very green leaves.

The roadside was gay with flowers,--gillias and mountain balm; high pink and purple spikes, like foxgloves, which they were told were pentstemons; painters' brush, whose green tips seemed dipped in liquid vermilion, and masses of the splendid wild poppies.

They crossed a foaming little river; and a sharp turn brought them into a narrower and wilder road, which ran straight toward the mountain side.

This was overhung by trees, whose shade was grateful after the hot sun.
Narrower and narrower grew the road, more and more sharp the turns.

They were at the entrance of a deep defile, up which the road wound and wound, following the links of the river, which they crossed and recrossed repeatedly.