Lying low against their horses' necks, they scrambled up a steep
cattle trail out of the canyon, and began to work across rough
country toward the knolls.
"Say, Saxon, you're always lookin' for something pretty. I'll
show you what'll make your hair stand up . . . soon as we get
through this manzanita."
Never, in all their travels, had Saxon seen so lovely a vista as
the one that greeted them when they emerged. The dim trail lay
like a rambling red shadow cast on the soft forest floor by the
great redwoods and over-arching oaks. It seemed as if all local
varieties of trees and vines had conspired to weave the leafy
roof--maples, big madronos and laurels, and lofty tan-bark oaks,
scaled and wrapped and interwound with wild grape and flaming
poison oak. Saxon drew Billy's eyes to a mossy bank of
five-finger ferns. All slopes seemed to meet to form this basin
and colossal forest bower. Underfoot the floor was spongy with
water. An invisible streamlet whispered under broad-fronded
brakes. On every hand opened tiny vistas of enchantment, where
young redwoods grouped still and stately about fallen giants,
shoulder-high to the horses, moss-covered and dissolving into
mold.
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