Suddenly Hazel's merry laugh came echoing back to him.
"Say, isn't this a great place?" she cried. "It's like one of those enchanted lands you read of in fairy books." Then she added a further warning. "Keep low. We're nearly through."
The horses scrambled on in the semi-darkness. But for Gordon the enchantment of the place was passing, and he was glad to know they were nearly through.
A few minutes later he saw Hazel begin to straighten herself up in the saddle. He followed her example with some caution and considerable relief. The roof was becoming higher, so, too, was the light increasing. Gordon breathed a sigh.
"I don't know about the lunch," he said. "I've bumped the walls for some considerable time. Is there much more of it?"
But before Hazel's reply could reach him his inquiry was answered by the cavern itself. All in an instant they rounded a bend and a dazzling beam of sunlight banished the darkness and nearly blinded him. Two minutes later he pushed his way through a dense screen of willows, and emerged upon the bank of a beautiful, serene lake of absolutely transparent, sunlit water.
"Behold the spring which is the source of that little stream," cried Hazel, indicating the lake spread out before them. "Isn't it a fairy-book picture? Look round you. Oh, say, I just love it to death."
Gordon gazed about him in wonder. The lake was quite small, but its setting was as beautiful as any artist could have painted it. All around it, on two-thirds of its circumference, a hundred different shades of green illumined the wonderful tangled vegetation. He looked for the place from which they had emerged. It was completely hidden. Gone, vanished as if by magic. All that remained were the great hills at the back and the wooded banks of the lake at their feet.
He looked down at the water. Clear, clear; it was clear as crystal. Then he turned towards the sun, and something of the wonder of it all thrilled him. A sea, a calm, unruffled sea of the greenest grass he had ever beheld stretched out before him. Or was it a broad river of grass? Yes, it was a wide river, perhaps two miles wide, with great mountainous banks on either side. To him they seemed to be standing at its source, and its flow carried his gaze away on towards the west, where, above all, miles and miles away, shone the white peaks of the mountains.
The banks of this superb valley were deeply wooded from the base to the soaring summits. Only were the hues of the foliage varied. Right at the foot the green was bright, but less bright than the tall sweet grass. While higher, the dark foliage of pine woods rose somberly on stately towering blackened trunks.