He was seeing everything for the first time.

On other days he had gone out with others.

Under their guidance, not trusted to undertake an expedition by himself, he looked at nothing until it was pointed out to him, heard nothing that was not first called to his attention.

He had always wondered at the acuteness of the senses of all other men.
But now, looking on the mountains for himself, he decided, with a start of the heart, that they were beautiful--beautiful and terrible at once, with the reality that he had never found in his books.

What leveled spear of a knight, in the pages of romance, could equal the invisible thrust of this wind?
He reached the timberline.