The country now presented a very different appearance from that seen on emerging from the Green Valley. To right and left, woods rose, tier on tier. They consisted almost exclusively of resinous species, which flourish in great altitudes, and were watered by brawling little streams which flowed towards the east. These little streams, which contributed directly or indirectly to the Montrose, would soon dry up under the heat of summer, and already it was possible to cross them ankle-deep.
The adventurers went on until eleven o'clock. A halt was then called for rest and refreshment, after a pretty tiring stage.
There had been no lack of game from the start. Jack had even succeeded in bagging a young antelope, the best portions of which he brought in, and the game-bags were packed with what was left, to serve for the evening dinner.
It was well that this precaution had been taken for in the afternoon all game, both furred and feathered, entirely disappeared.
The midday halt was passed at the foot of an enormous pine, near which Ernest lighted a fire of dead branches. While one of the antelope's quarters was roasting under Jack's vigilant eye, Mr. Wolston and Ernest went off a few hundred yards to get a look at the country.
"If this forest belt extends as far as the range," said Ernest, "it most likely covers the lower slopes. At least, that is what I thought I could see this morning when we left our camp."
"In that case," Mr. Wolston replied, "we shall have to make the best of it, and go through these forests. We could not get round them without greatly lengthening our route, and we might even have to go right to the east coast."
"Which must be something like twenty-five miles away," Ernest remarked, "if my estimate is right. I mean the part of the coast we went to in the pinnace, at the mouth of the Montrose."
"If that is so, my dear boy, we cannot think of reaching the range from the east. The west——"
"That is the unknown quantity, sir; besides, when the range is viewed from above the Green Valley, it seems to run out of sight to the westward."