Page:Son of the wind.djvu/18

 The road had been endlessly turning around a great base of rock, and now he was aware that the cañon which had led straight before him, was dropping away to the right. This road of man, as if it dared not follow the highway of the gods, was perversely turning aside between the close, round slopes of two "sugar-loafs." Carron should have been ready for this. But he had been rather in the clouds. Now, he had to remember that unless Rader was the "old man of the mountains" himself he could not be found in that citadel of high peaks. It was in reason that the road would change, yet, in spite of reason, he felt put off from the main object of his quest, and he looked at the fresh prospect with suspicion.

It was a narrow glimpse, a mere passageway through into a different country, of lower sky-line and thicker, greater companies of trees; and square at the end of it, so close it seemed to close the gap, making a cul-de-sac, was a low, round eminence—hill rather than mountain—clothed complete in dusky green. He had scarcely time to see it, to note the distinctive air it had among the rougher outlines around it, like a personage in a crowd, before it was shut from sight in thickening branches, and the landscape became a soft, mysterious thing of forest. Olive-green and gray were on either side of him, brown underfoot. There was a diminishing of angles