CHAPTER II
A VIEW OF THE PROMISED LAND
For nearly three days the Pony Rider Boys had been taking their ease in a Pullman sleeping car, making great inroads on the food served in the dining car.
It had been a happy journey. The boys were full of anticipation of what was before them. At intervals during the day they would study their maps and enter into long discussions with Professor Zepplin, the grizzled, stern-looking man who in so many other journeys had been their guardian and faithful companion. The Professor had joined them at St. Louis, where the real journey had commenced.
All that day they had been racing over baked deserts, a cloud of dust sifting into the car and making life miserable for the more tender passengers, though the hardy Pony Riders gave no heed to such trivial discomforts as heat and dust. They were used to that sort of thing. Furthermore, they expected, ere many more days had passed, to be treated to discomforts that were real.
Suddenly the train dashed from the baked desert into a green forest. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees in an instant. Everyone drew a long breath, faces were pressed against windows and expressions of delight were heard in many parts of the sleeper.
They had entered a forest of tall pines, so tall that the lads were obliged to crane their necks to see the tops.
"This is the beginning of the beginning," announced Professor Zepplin somewhat enigmatically. "This is the forest primeval."
"I don't know," replied Chunky, peering through a car window. "It strikes me that we've left the evil behind and got into the real thing."
"What is it, Professor?" asked Tad Butler.