oak-trees, scattered at rare intervals. So interested were we in them
that we did not notice rocks beginning to outcrop through the soil
until they had become numerous enough to be a feature of the landscape.
The hills, gently, quietly, without abrupt transition, almost as though
they feared to awaken our alarm by too abrupt movement of growth,
glided from little swells to bigger swells. The oaks gathered closer
together. The ravine's brother could almost be called a canon. The
character of the country had entirely changed.

And yet, so gradually had this change come about that we did not awaken
to a full realization of our escape. To us it was still the plain, a
trifle modified by local peculiarity, but presently to resume its
wonted aspect. We plodded on dully, anodyned with the desert patience.

But at a little before noon, as we rounded the cheek of a slope, we
encountered an errant current of air. It came up to us curiously,
touched us each in turn, and went on. The warm furnace heat drew in on
us again. But it had been a cool little current of air, with something
of the sweetness of pines and water and snow-banks in it. The
Tenderfoot suddenly reined in his horse and looked about him.

"Boys!" he cried, a new ring of joy in his voice, "we're in the
foot-hills!"

Wes calculated rapidly. "It's the eighth day to-day: I guessed right
on the time."

We stretched our arms and looked about us. They were dry brown hills
enough; but they were hills, and they had trees on them, and canons in
them, so to our eyes, wearied with flatness, they seemed wonderful.

VII

THE FOOT-HILLS

At once our spirits rose. We straightened in our saddles, we breathed
deep, we joked. The country was scorched and sterile; the wagon-trail,
almost paralleling the mountains themselves on a long easy slant toward
the high country, was ankle-deep in dust; the ravines were still dry of
water. But it was not the Inferno, and that one fact sufficed. After
a while we crossed high above a river which dashed white water against
black rocks, and so were happy.

The country went on changing. The change was always imperceptible, as
is growth, or the stealthy advance of autumn through the woods. From
moment to moment one could detect no alteration. Something intangible
was taken away; something impalpable added. At the end of an hour we
were in the oaks and sycamores; at the end of two we were in the pines
and low mountains of