These four skin-clad savages seemed to be enjoying an aboriginal picnic.
For lunch, they munched on various fruits and nuts picked up en route,
together with handfuls of some wheat-like cereal which the big man had
brought in a goatskin. From time to time they scared out various animals
from the brush, chasing the creatures after the fashion of dogs and
children. Whenever they came to a stream, invariably all four splashed
through it, shouting and laughing with delight.

However, there were but two of these streams, and both of them quite
small. Their banks indicated that either the season was very far
advanced, or else that the streams were at one time vastly larger.

"A rather significant fact," the doctor afterward commented.

Nevertheless, the most impressive thing about all that the doctor
learned that day was the strange manner in which the excursion came to
an end. The quartet was at that moment climbing a small hill, apparently
on the edge of an extensive range of mountains. An occasional tree,
something like an oak, broke the monotony of the brush at this point,
and yet it was not until Rolla was quite at the top of the knoll that
Kinney could see surrounding country with any degree of clearness. Even
then he learned little.

The hill was placed on one edge of a valley about forty miles in width.
A good part of it was covered with dusty vegetation, presumably wild;
but the rest was plainly under cultivation. There were large green
areas, such as argued grain fields; elsewhere were what looked like
orchards and vineyards, some of which were in full bloom--refuting the
notion that the season was a late one. Nowhere was there a spot of land
which might be called barren.