"And you never told me all this!" she reproached him, as they
looked across the little clearing and over the descending slopes
of woods to the great curving sweep of Sonoma Valley.
"Come," he said; and they turned and went back through the forest
shade, crossed the stream and came to the lily by the spring.
Here, also, where the way led up the tangle of the steep hill, he
had cut a rough horse trail. As they forced their way up the
zigzags, they caught glimpses out and down through the sea of
foliage. Yet always were their farthest glimpses stopped by the
closing vistas of green, and, yet always, as they climbed, did
the forest roof arch overhead, with only here and there rifts
that permitted shattered shafts of sunlight to penetrate. And
all about them were ferns, a score of varieties, from the tiny
gold-backs and maidenhair to huge brakes six and eight feet tall.
Below them, as they mounted, they glimpsed great gnarled trunks
and branches of ancient trees, and above them were similar great
gnarled branches.
Dede stopped her horse and sighed with the beauty of it all.
"It is as if we are swimmers," she said, "rising out of a deep
pool of green tranquillity.
Pages:
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500