descent was possible, for at the foot of the
mountain lay the open valley; but there were no trails; in all
likelihood they were where no man, red or white, had ever been before;
they had to force their way where the brush was thinnest, and as often
their flight was toward loftier heights.

As the day wore on the temperature fell, even in those forest depths
where the sun had not penetrated for a thousand years. The beauty of
the forest palled upon Roldan: those everlasting aisles with their grey
motionless columns, their green sinister light, the delicate fern wood
below, the dense mat of branch and leaf so high above. The redwoods
oppress and terrify when they have man completely at their mercy. They
look as if they could speak if they would, roar louder than the storms
that have never shaken them. But they know the value of silence, and
the silence of their inmost depths is awful.

After many hours the boys rode out upon a bare peak. But its outlook
told them nothing. Behind rose other peaks, below was the dense
primeval forest, rising and falling on other slopes. There was no
glimpse of valley anywhere. The sky was heavy with the grey lurid
clouds of concentrated storm.

"We will eat," said Roldan, briefly; "but not too much."

They tethered the mustangs that the beasts might eat of the abundant
grass, and consumed a small quantity of their store. Then they
stretched at full length on the ground to rest their weary bodies.

"Let us stay here the night," said Adan, with a cavernous yawn.

"It is hardly darker by night than by day in the forest, but perhaps it
is well to rest."

"I am one ache, no more," murmured Adan, and went to sleep.

Roldan pillowed his head on his arm and for once followed lead. He
awoke suddenly, his face wet and stinging. White stars were whirling,
the ground was white, the forest was half obliterated.

He shook Adan and dragged him to his feet.

"We must get into the redwoods at once," he said. "We shall be buried
here."

Adan gasped but cinched his saddle; the boys sprang upon the now
tractable mustangs and plunged into the forest below. The brush was
thin, and they pushed their way downward as rapidly as the steep
descent would permit. Sometimes the forest protected them from the
storm, at others the trees grew wide apart and the riders were exposed
to its pitiless rush. In these open spaces they could see nothing,
could only push blindly on, brushing the stinging particles fro