Indeed, before they had been an hour on the way that morning, they began to notice that a remarkable change was taking place in the character of their surroundings. The sun's rays, falling on the face of a hill, filled them with awe, for it seemed to reveal almost every hue of the rainbow. Here a waterfall burst upon their vision, the stream dropping fully a hundred feet, and looking like a bridal wreath as the light breeze carried the fine spray to leeward, through several rainbows. "The Enchanted Land, of a truth, Dick!" was Roger's comment, as they came to a full stop, to gaze upon these remarkable sights. "Already it begins to look to me as though there might be some truth in the weird stories the Indians have been telling about this country up here," the other boy confessed. As for Mayhew, the guide, he could not find words to describe the mingled feelings of admiration and wonder that filled his soul. None of them dreamed of turning back, although they were beginning to encounter sights such as the eyes of white men had possibly never before beheld. "Jasper was not dismayed by all this," said Dick, "for we can see that he and his party kept on, following the course of this river of the cataracts and the rapids. So we, too, must march on." "I feel thirsty," remarked Roger, shortly after this, "and as here runs a nice looking little stream I think I will take a drink." Dick was about to follow suit when he saw Roger suddenly start up from his kneeling position, with a look of the most intense astonishment on his face. "Why, Dick, it burns me!" he cried. "The water is hot!" Dick immediately tested it with his hand. "Just as you say, Roger, it seems as though it might be over a fire. Do you know, I noticed something like a trace of steam, but I thought it only such vapor as we often see rising from ice-cold water." "But who ever before met with boiling water in the open?" asked Roger. "Why, there must be fires under the earth here, such as leap out of volcanoes in other countries." He even rested his hand on the rock close by, but found it cold. Vegetation grew all around the hot stream and pool, showing that it never overflowed its banks at any time. "There's one good thing about it," remarked Dick, turning to the frontiersman; "after this, if these hot springs are common here, you will never need to build a fire in order to make a pannikin of tea." "I can believe almost anything after this," muttered Roger, as he dabbled his hand in the pool, and quickly snatched it out again, for the water seemed to almost scald his flesh. "Of course nothing can live in such a stream. I wonder what next we will run across. Cats with tassels on their ears, rocks and mud looking like they had been painted every color going, waterfalls that drop from the clouds, and where rainbows play hide and seek in the sunlight, and now a boiling spring, and a hot pool. What if one of us had fallen in here, and could not get out?"