Insensibly, as they mounted, the season had changed.  The oaks that, at the level of Sycamore Flats, had been in full leaf, here showed but the tender pinks and russets of the first foliage.  The dogwoods were quite dormant.  Rivulets of seepage and surface water trickled in the most unexpected places as though from snow recently melted.

Of climbing there seemed no end.  False skylines recurrently deceived Bob into a belief that the buckboard was about to surmount the top.  Always the rise proved to be preliminary to another.  The road dipped behind little spurs, climbed ravines, lost itself between deep cuts.  Only rarely did the forest growths permit a view, and then only in glimpses between the tops of trees.  In the valley and against the foothills now intervened the peaceful and calm blue atmosphere of distance.

“I’d no idea from looking at it this mountain was so high,” he told Welton.

“You never do,” said Welton.  “They always fool you.  We’re pretty nigh the top now.”

Indeed, for a little space the forest had perforce to thin because of lack of footing.  The slope became almost a precipice, ending in a bold comb above which once more could be glimpsed the tops of trees.  Quite ingeniously the road discovered a cleft up which it laboured mightily, to land breathless after a heart-breaking pull.  Just over the top Welton drew rein to breathe his horses—­and to hear what Bob had to say about it.

The buckboard stood at the head of a long, gentle slope descending, perhaps fifty feet, to a plateau; which, in turn, rose to another crest some miles distant.  The level of this plateau, which comprised, perhaps, thirty thousand acres all told, supported a noble and unbroken forest.

Mere statistics are singularly unavailing to convey even an idea of a California woodland at its best.  We are not here dealing with the so-called “Big Trees,” but with the ordinary—­or extraordinary—­pines and spruces.  The forest is free from dense undergrowths; the individual trees are enormous, yet so symmetrical that the eye can realize their size only when it catches sight of some usual and accustomed object, such as men or horses or the buildings in which they live.  Even then it is quite as likely that the measures will appear to have been struck small, as that the measured will show in their true grandeur of proportion.  The eye refuses to be convinced off-hand that its education has been faulty.

“Now,” said Welton decidedly.  “We may as well have it over with right now.  How big is that young tree over there?”

He pointed out a half-grown specimen of sugar pine.

“About twenty inches in diameter,” replied Bob promptly.

Welton silently handed him a tape line.  Bob descended.

“Thirty-seven!” he cried with vast astonishment, when his measurements were taken and his computations made.

“Now that one,” commanded Welton, indicating a larger tree.