[Gutenberg 42417] • The Air Patrol: A Story of the North-west Frontier

A summer afternoon was dwindling to night over a wild solitude among the borderlands of Northern India. The sun had already left the deep spacious valley, wherein, as the light waned, the greens changed to browns, the browns deepened to black, and the broad silver band that denoted a stream flowing along the bottom was dulled to the hue of lead. On the west, the harsh and rugged features of the mountains, towering to incalculable heights, were softened by the increasing shade; while the snowy summits, flushed by the declining rays, were scarcely distinguishable from the roseate clouds. Away to the east, where the sunlight still lingered, the huge mountain barrier showed every gradation of tone, from the greenish-black of the pine forest at the foot, through varieties of purple and grey, to the mingled pink and gold of the topmost crests. Every knob and fissure on the scarred face was defined and accentuated, until, as the curtain of shadow stole gradually higher, outlines were blurred, and the warm tints faded into drabs and greys.

Along the front of the mountains on the west there was a road--a track, rather, which might have seemed to the fancy to be desperately clinging to the rugged surface, lest it were hurled into the precipitous valley beneath. It followed every jut and indentation of the rock, here broadening, narrowing there until it was no more than a shelf; with twists and bends so abrupt and frequent that it would have been hard to find a stretch of fifty yards that could have been called straight.