Then he realized
that all the time he had been aware of this perfume faintly disengaging
itself from the hills. In spite of Mr. Welton's disgust, Bob liked its
clean, pungent suggestion.
The road mounted always, following the contour of the mountains. Thus it
alternately emerged and crept on around bold points, and bent back into
the recesses of ravines. Clear, beautiful streams dashed and sang down
the latter; from the former, often, Bob could look out over the valley
from which they had mounted, across the foothills, to the distant,
yellowing plains far on the horizon, lost finally in brown heat waves.
Sycamore Flats lay almost directly below. Always it became smaller, and
more and more like a coloured relief-map with tiny, Noah's-ark houses.
The forest grew sturdily on the steep mountain. Bob's eyes were on a
level with the tops of trees growing but a few hundred feet away. The
horizon line was almost at eleven o'clock above him.
"How'd you handle this kind of a proposition?" he inquired. "Looks to me
like hard sledding."
"This stuff is no good," said Welton. "These little, yellow pines ain't
worth cutting.
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