The blue walls of the mountains that hemmed its eastern edge were very near now.

Dick looked at them through his glasses, not to find an enemy, but merely for the pleasure of bringing out the heavy forests on their slopes.

It was true that the leaves were already touched by the summer's heat, but in the distance at least the mass looked green.

He knew also that under the screen of the leaves the grass preserved its freshness and there were many little streams, foaming in white as they rushed down the steep slopes.

It was a marvelously pleasing sight to him, and, as the wilderness thus called, he was once more deeply grateful that he had escaped from the muddy trench.
"We'll pass through a gap, sir, tomorrow morning," said Sergeant Whitley, "and go into the main valley." "The gap would be the place for the Southern force to meet us." But Sergeant Whitley shook his head.
"There are too many gaps and too few Southern troops," he said.