noon
Through brush-covered plains once more , with sparsely wooded hills in the distance , and again the tules , the marsh , the patches of orange . He rode through a field of mustard ; the pale yellow petals brushed his dark face , the delicate green leaves won his eyes from the hot glare of the ascending sun , the slender stalks , rebounding , smote his horse 's flanks . He climbed hills to avoid the wide marshes , and descended into willow groves and fields of daisies . Before noon he was in the San Juan Mountains , thick with sturdy oaks , bending their heads before the madroño , that belle of the forest , with her robes of scarlet and her crown of bronze . The yellow lilies clung to her skirts , and the buckeye flung his flowers at her feet . The last redwoods were there , piercing the blue air with their thin inflexible arms , gray as a dusty band of friars . Out by the willows , whereunder crept the sluggish river , then between the hills curving about the valley of San Juan Bautista .