But the desert did not appear to be deserted. From the farther clumps came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains. Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped pheasants scattered on their approach; the black squirrels dived into their holes; the rabbits disappeared in all directions; the gophers were sitting on their hind legs beside their holes, looking like fat German farmers standing in their doorway.
After resting an hour the children proceeded on their journey. Jenny soon felt thirsty. Orso, in whom had awakened his Indian inventive faculties, began to pluck cactus fruits. They were in abundance, and grew together with the flowers on the same leaves. In plucking them they pricked their fingers with the sharp points, but the fruit was luscious. Their sweet and acid flavor quenched at once their thirst and appeased their hunger. The prairies fed the children as a mother; thus strengthened they could proceed further. The cacti arose higher, and you could say that they grew on the head of one another. The ground on which they walked ascended gradually and continuously. Looking backward once more they saw Anaheim, dissolving in the distance and looking like a grove of trees upon the low plains. Not a trace of the circus could be distinguished. They still pressed steadily onward to the mountains, which now became more distinct in the distance. The surroundings assumed another phase. Between the cacti appeared different bushes and even trees; the wooded portion of the foothills of Santa Ana had commenced. Orso broke one of the saplings, and, clearing off its branches, made a cudgel of it, which, in his hands, would prove a terrible weapon. His Indian instincts whispered to him that in the mountains it was better to be provided, even with a stick, than to go unarmed, especially now that the sun had lowered itself into the west. Its great fiery shield had rolled down far beyond Anaheim, into the blue ocean. After a while it disappeared, and in the west there gleamed red, golden, and orange lights, similar to ribbons and gauzy veils, stretched over the whole sky. The mountains uplifted themselves in this glow; the cacti assumed different fantastical shapes, resembling people and animals. Jenny felt tired and sleepy, but they still hastened to the mountains, although they knew not why. Soon they saw rocks, and on reaching them they discovered a stream; they drank some water and continued along its course. The rocks, which were at first broken and scattered, then changed into a solid wall, which became higher and higher, and soon they entered into a cañon.