CHAPTER VI
THE HUNCHBACK
The shadows were already falling on that side of the range as the boys rode slowly into a narrow pass. The shade was a decided relief from the glare of the California sun that they had encountered all day.
"Gosh, but I should like to have a cool breath from the Rockies," declared Juarez with emphasis, "This sort of a climate makes me tired. Nothing but the sun staring at you all the time. It goes down clear and comes up with the same kind of a grin on its face."
"It will be cooler when we get on the other side," said Jim, encouragingly, "and it won't be long now."
"I hope we will strike water on the other side," remarked Jo. "I'm tired of looking at that bald-headed stream down there," indicating the dry blistered bed of a former water-course.
Nothing more was said until of a sudden they rode to the top of the Pass, and saw a new landscape spread out before them.
It was a broad and beautiful view, with the sun striking the wide Pacific, with a blazing glare of silver and below the wooded slope of the mountains, stretched an apparently level plain, where roamed countless cattle, and innumerable sheep. It had all the breadth characteristic of the Californian landscape.
"That's a pretty good looking view," remarked Jim admiringly. He would have been still more interested if he could have seen a trim-looking black vessel in a small cove directly west but a good many miles distant.
"I wonder if it isn't going to rain," said Tom. "See those clouds rolling in over the ocean."