To what wild spot had the animal brought him? David lifted his head and looked about him, and it was as if he had been caught up and dropped in an enchanted wood. The horse had climbed among great boulders and paused beneath an enormous overhanging rock. He heard, off at one side, the rushing sound of a mountain stream and judged he was near the head of Lone Pine Creek. But oh, the wildness of the spot and the beauty of it and the lonely charm! He tied his horse to a lithe limb that swung above his head and, dismounting, clambered on towards the rushing water.

The place was so screened in as to leave no vista anywhere, hiding the mountains on all sides. Light green foliage overhead, where branches thickly interlaced from great trees growing out of the bank high above, made a cool, lucent shadowiness all around him.