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.