mosphere to taste the
freshness of the morn.

At the base of the knolls he encountered a tumble-down stake-and-rider
fence. From the look of it he judged it must be forty years old at
least--the work of some first pioneer who had taken up the land when
the days of gold had ended. The woods were very thick here, yet fairly
clear of underbrush, so that, while the blue sky was screened by the
arched branches, he was able to ride beneath. He now found himself in
a nook of several acres, where the oak and manzanita and madrono gave
way to clusters of stately redwoods. Against the foot of a
steep-sloped knoll he came upon a magnificent group of redwoods that
seemed to have gathered about a tiny gurgling spring.

He halted his horse, for beside the spring uprose a wild California
lily. It was a wonderful flower, growing there in the cathedral nave
of lofty trees. At least eight feet in height, its stem rose straight
and slender, green and bare for two-thirds its length, and then burst
into a shower of snow-white waxen bells. There were hundreds of these
blossoms, all from the one stem, delicately poised and ethereally
frail. Daylight had never seen anything like it. Slowly his gaze
wandered from it to all that was about him. He took off his hat, with
almost a vague religious feeling. This was different. No room for
contempt and evil here. This was clean and fresh and
beautiful-something he could respect. It was like a church. The
atmosphere was one of holy calm. Here man felt the prompting of nobler
things. Much of this and more was in Daylight's heart as he looked
about him. But it was not a concept of his mind. He merely felt it
without thinking about it at all.

On the steep incline above the spring grew tiny maidenhair ferns, while
higher up were larger ferns and brakes. Great, moss-covered trunks of
fallen trees lay here and there, slowly sinking back and merging into
the level of the forest mould. Beyond, in a slightly clearer space,
wild grape and honeysuckle swung in green riot from gnarled old oak
trees. A gray Douglas squirrel crept out on a branch and watched him.
From somewhere came the distant knocking of a woodpecker. This sound
did not disturb the hush and awe of the place. Quiet woods, noises
belonged there and made the solitude complete. The tiny bubbling
ripple of the spring and the gray flash of tree-squirrel were as
yardsticks with which to measure the silence and motionless repose