The boats were paddled several miles up-stream to a place where the scenery was more open.
At every bend and reach of the river Roland expected to find Benee waiting for them. Perhaps he had built a hut and was living by fishing-rod and gun.
But no Benee was visible and no hut.
Together the two friends, Roland and Dick, accompanied by Charlie and Brawn, took their way across the plain and through the scrub, towards a lofty, cone-shaped hill that seemed to dominate all the scenery in its immediate neighbourhood.
To the very top of this mountain they climbed, agreed between themselves not to look back until they had reached the summit, in order that the wild beauty of this lone lorn land should burst upon them in all its glory, and at once.
They kept to their resolution, and were amply rewarded.
As far as eye could reach in any direction was a vast panorama of mountain, forest, and stream, with many a beautiful lake glittering silvery in the sunshine.
But no smoke, no indication of inhabitants anywhere.
"It seems to be quite an untenanted country we have struck," said Dick.
"All the better for us, perhaps, Dick," said Roland, "for farther we cannot proceed until poor Benee comes. He ought to have been here before now. But what adventures and dangers he may have had to pass through Heaven and himself only know."