She excelled them by the boldness of her profile. Her great bald
summit, clear of trees and pasture, a cairn of quartz and cinnabar,
rejected kinship with the dark and shaggy wilderness of lesser
hill-tops.



CHAPTER II--THE PETRIFIED FOREST



We drove off from the Springs Hotel about three in the afternoon.
The sun warmed me to the heart. A broad, cool wind streamed
pauselessly down the valley, laden with perfume. Up at the top
stood Mount Saint Helena, a bulk of mountain, bare atop, with tree-
fringed spurs, and radiating warmth. Once we saw it framed in a
grove of tall and exquisitely graceful white oaks, in line and
colour a finished composition. We passed a cow stretched by the
roadside, her bell slowly beating time to the movement of her
ruminating jaws, her big red face crawled over by half a dozen
flies, a monument of content.

A little farther, and we struck to the left up a mountain road, and
for two hours threaded one valley after another, green, tangled,
full of noble timber, giving us every now and again a sight of
Mount Saint Helena and the blue hilly distance, and crossed by many
streams, through which we splashed to the carriage-step. To the
right or the left, there was scarce any trace of man but the road
we followed; I think we passed but one ranchero's house in the
whole distance, and that was closed and smokeless. But we had the