All that afternoon they climbed up endless grades, where the highway was cut out of the sides of the cañons, and the great trees shadowed the road, and down again, and up again.
“Are we in the Cascade Mountains now?” the boys asked.
“No, these are just hills,” said the doctor. “You won’t see any mountains till we get almost into Medford. Cheer up, they’ll be there tomorrow.”
The grades were so numerous, and so long and hard, that it was impossible to make as many miles in a day here as it is in the East. As the sun began to sink, the doctor began watching for camp sites, and presently he pulled into a field beside the road where a brook came down from a hill, and they camped for a second night on the road.
An early start again was ordered, and now the grades grew less severe again, and after a few hours the cars ran out into a wide plain, and suddenly the boys gave a yell.
“The mountains!” they cried.
Sure enough, there they were. To the east lay the blue rampart of the Cascade range, and right in the centre, covered white with snow, shot up the peaked pyramid of Mount McLaughlin. To the south and west, shutting the valley in, rose more mountains, some of them still showing snow on their summits. Across the head of the valley ran a tumbling green stream, the Rogue River.
“That river comes down from close to Crater Lake,” said Uncle Billy.
“Gee, I’d like to get into it right now,” Bennie remarked.
A dozen miles more, and they were in Medford, a neat, clean little city (it would be called a town in the East), surrounded by flourishing fruit orchards and grain fields. The boys scouted around for some crackers and fireworks, while the men restocked the cars with provisions, got gas and oil, and inquired about the road to the lake.