So soundly did I sleep, after the fatigues of the evening, that Uncle Denis had to give me a pretty rough shake, and then looking up, I saw that it was daylight overhead, though it was still almost dark in the depths of the pass.
We lost no time, as soon as breakfast was over, in moving on, hoping that before long we should emerge into the open country. For hours we trudged on, ascending but slightly, and the horses had no difficulty in dragging up the carts, when suddenly the bright glare of daylight appeared before us and we found ourselves looking down on a broad valley bathed in sunlight, but with another range of mountains beyond. The sides sloped gradually towards a sparkling stream which flowed at the bottom, clothed with rich vegetation. Was this valley to be our home, or were we to cross the second range, into a still more fertile region?
“This is just the sort of spot we have been looking for, and I hope my father will stop here!” I exclaimed to Mr Tidey, with whom I was walking.
“Very good possibly, but where are we to find a market for our produce? Unless there is a pass through the second range, no emigrant trains are likely to come this way, and I do not think your father or any other sensible man would wish to exclude himself from the rest of the world, though undoubtedly we might manage to exist if big-horns, and deer, and buffalo are to be found in the neighbourhood.”
When my father came up, he stopped and surveyed the valley.
“Its beauty consists in its contrast to the dark gorge we have passed through,” he remarked; “see those black rocks cropping up in all directions through the grass: the soil is of but little depth, and we could nowhere find an acre of arable land.”
Uncle Denis agreed with him, but observed that it would be as well to camp in the valley, for the sake of giving the horses a good feed, while we searched a passage either through or over the next range.
I should occupy too much space, were I minutely to describe the next few days’ journey, the steeps we climbed up, the descents we made, now keeping along the edge of a roaring torrent, now ascending by the brink of precipices, over which there appeared a great risk of the carts and horses falling to the bottom.
Still we worked our onward way, my father being confident that we should encounter no insuperable obstacles. We had climbed to a height early in the day, from which, through his glass, he had obtained a view over the region we had to pass. Though wild and rugged in the extreme, it was of no great elevation.
“If we cannot get through in one direction, we may in another,” he remarked.