Leaving the hot spring behind them, they pushed on along the trail made by Jasper Williams’s party. Doubtless those three men were also filled with wonder at what they saw. Roger more than once expressed doubt as to whether they would have the courage to continue their explorations much further, surrounded as they found themselves by such marvelous freaks of nature.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we met them hurrying back out of here,” he told his companions. “Jasper himself is a bold spirit, but I have a poor opinion of the two other men with him. I believe they are inclined to be superstitious, like the Indians, and these things are enough to make the flesh creep.”
Here and there, as openings occurred, they could catch glimpses of distant peaks that looked like cathedral spires in the gilding rays of the sun. Dick was drinking in these pictures with eagerness, for the boy had something of the artist in his nature. He could appreciate such glorious works wrought by the deft hand of nature more fully than Roger, who saw rather the practical side of the picture.
Once, during that morning tramp, Roger did receive a fright. It did not come from any threatened attack on the part of a ferocious wild beast, nor yet through his narrow escape from falling into some pit where strange, gurgling, mysterious sounds oozed forth. On the contrary it was just because it started to snow furiously, so that the whole landscape was blotted out.
“That settles it, Dick,” he exclaimed, in sheer disgust, “we’re done for now. The only thing left us is to head as best we may for the place we believe the Valley of Wonders lies, and which we must be close to, right now.”
“You are in too big a hurry, Roger,” his cousin told him. “Just because a few flakes chance to come down is no proof that we are in for a storm. Look up and you will see the blue sky over yonder. It is only a passing squall, and soon over with, so cheer up.”
His prophecy proved true, because in another minute the snow ceased to fall, and out came the welcome sun again, to once more paint the hillsides with his wondrous brush, and stripe them with rainbow tints.
“You must own up that most of our troubles come and go like that,” commented Dick. “At first they seem to be dark and heavy, but all at once the sun breaks out, and we forget the gloomy past. It ought to be a lesson to you.”
“I know it, Dick, but my nature is different from yours. I am either bubbling over with joy or else weighed down with foreboding. But we can see some distance ahead at this point, and I must confess that there is no sign of a human being, so Jasper and his comrades cannot be returning along the trail.”