Tuesday noon
It was as if the snow had melted , and the great gate had closed itself . Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from ? Tramp , tramp , tramp , -- the heavy boots had sounded on the road , -- tramp , tramp , tramp ! since Sunday morning , and now it was Tuesday noon . Often for hours together there had been no witness to the steady march , save the lordly pine-trees , standing straight and grand in the mountain `` parks , '' or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroaching cliffs ; the cliffs themselves , frowning sternly above the path ; and always somewhere on the horizon , towering above the nearer hills or closing in the end of the valley , a snowy peak gleaming like a transcendent promise against the sky . Waldo Kean , as he strode steadily down from his father 's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new future whose door was about to be flung wide to him , felt the inspiration of those rugged mountain influences , the like of which had been his familiars all the seventeen years of his life . The chattering brooks had nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills to join the rollicking stream whose course his path followed ; the sunflowers , gilding the edge of the road , were but frills and furbelows to his thinking .