The mountain with the white scar was their beacon. Harkness pointed it out to their guide and made him understand that that was where they would go.
And, when night was gone, and the first rays of the rising sun made a quickly changing kaleidoscope of the colorful east, they came at last to a barren height. Behind them was a maze of valleys and rolling hills; beyond these was a place of smoke, where red fires shone pale in the early light, and set off at one side was a shape whose cylindrical outline could be plainly seen. It caught the first light of the sun to reflect it in sparkling lines and glittering points, and every reflection came back to them tinged with pale green, by which they knew that the gas was still there.
Chet turned from a prospect that could only be depressing. His muscles were heavy with the poisons of utter fatigue; the others must be the same, but for the present they were safe, and they could find some position that they could defend. Towahg would be a valuable ally. And now their lives were ahead of them—lives of loneliness, of exile.
Harkness, too, had been staring back toward that ship that was their only link with their lost world; his eyes met Chet's in an exchange of glances that showed how similar were their thoughts. And then, at sound of a glad laugh from Diane, their looks of despair gave place to something more like shame, and Chet shifted his own eyes quickly away.
"It is beautiful, Walter," Diane was saying: "the lovely valley, the lake, the three mountain peaks like sentinels. It is marvelous. And we will be happy there, all of us, I know it.... Happy Valley. There—I've named it! Do you like the name, Walter?"
And Chet saw Harkness' reply in a quick pressure of his hand on one of Diane's. And he knew why Walt looked suddenly away without giving her an answer in words.
"Happy Valley!" Diane of all the four had shown the ability to rise above desperate physical weariness, above a despondent mood, to dare look ahead instead of backward and to find hope for happiness in the prospect.
Off at one side, Chet saw Kreiss; the scientist's weariness was forgotten while he ran like a puppy after a bird, in pursuit of a floating butterfly that drifted like a wind-blown flower. And Harkness, unspeaking, was still clinging to Diane's firm hand.... Yes, thought Chet, there was happiness to be found here. For himself, it would be more than a little lonesome. But, he reflected, what happiness was there in any place or thing more than the happiness we put there for ourselves?... Happy Valley—and why not? He dared to meet the girl's eyes now, and the smile on his lips spread to his own eyes, as he echoed his thoughts:
"Why not?" he asked. "Happy Valley it is; we just didn't recognize it at first."