VIEW OF CRAGGY PEAK FROM THE PATH TO MOUNT MITCHELL. ered-a tree which will only grow above a height of four thousand feet. The range strikes across the mountain region of the Carolinas and Tennessee like an angry tremendous shadow. Upon the summit of the highest peak Professor Mitchell was killed by falling from a precipice, and was buried by the United States government, in an unusual freak of poetic justice, on the very summit. His name was given to the mountain. Such monument no man ever had. The Doctor's party reached the guide's house at night-fall. The next morning, mounted on mules and sure-footed Canadian ponies, they began the ascent, led by William and Charley Glass. "This family of Glass," said Judge Hixley, who walked by Sarah's stirrup, "have been hunters and guides on the old Black for three generations. They are men and women of great native force, who have lived in absolute solitude, and have been educated by the mountains. I find them the best of good company. Towns breed none such. When I was here last, their father was living, a blind old hunter, his white hair floating down his shoulders, his voice as low and quiet as a woman's. The boys and their sister had a strange and terrible experience in the war, and bore themselves as their father's children would do." "They were Confederates, of course?" "No. Most of these mountaineers were stanch toh the Union," said the Virginian, with a shrug. "This is William Glass who is coming toh lead your horse. There is not a mile of this terrible Black Range which he and his brother do not know. They were hunted over it like wild beasts for five years because they were loyal to the flag. Oh yes, I was on the other side. But I know a man when I meet him." The trail traverses sixteen miles of unbroken wilderness, steep precipices, and angry torrents, sometimes only a foot or two wide; it crosses slippery cliffs which overhang murderous abysses. The wise little ponies test every step with their forefeet before setting them down. Half way up the mountain, they reached the spring of the Swannanon, and the ruins of a house. Below lay a sea of tossing clouds, with a thousand dark peaks piercing them reaching skyward. They pressed on, as it was growing late. The latter part of the ascent was made on foot. All the cheerful green deciduous woods were now left far behind, and even the funereal balsams refused to live on the summit, and stood on the peak a procession of ghastly dead trunks. Nothing but these gray wraiths of trees was visible when they reached the top, the They then went on to Asheville, which has been the end of the journey into these mountains with most explorers. The Doctor, however, made it only a head-quarters from which they penetrated into solitudes where the trade dollar, the artist, and the summer tourist are unknown. mountain being wrapped in fog. They made a fire, and camped all night on the peak. Sarah awoke before dawn. She started up, and hurried to the edge of the precipice. She was upon the highest point of land east of the Mississippi. She knew that the Atlantic coast and the valley of the Mississippi were stretched out below her, but the earth had sunk wholly out of sight; she stood alone in the sky. Beneath her, from one horizon to the other, rolled an ocean of liquid trembling hues. It was the very birth-place of color. She was above it, in pure ether. She turned at last, and found the Judge standing beside her. He was a homely, insignificant little man, but there was something in his presence not out of keep-ed lines of stages through many passes of ing with the place and the moment. "This is Mitchell's grave," he said, presently, pointing to a wind-blown patch of grass upon the topmost height. "I should be glad to think that I too should so rest at last alone with God." "Hillo!" said Morley, coming up, with a yawn. "Nice cloud effects here, eh? That is, for this side of the water. Come, let's go to breakfast." They came down the mountain that day, but remained at Glass's for a week, fishing for trout in the Swannanon, which ran past the door, and hunting deer and small game with good success. The North Carolina mountains are infested with bear and wolves, but the impenetrable laurel thickets give them a safe hiding-place in summer. It is useless to hunt them until the leaves begin to fall in October. Asheville lies upon a high plateau surrounded by the Balsam Range; the pure, dry air sifted through these trees has healing on its wings for all lung diseases. There is a sanitarium in the little town, which is becoming, like Aiken, and for the same reasons, a Mecca for consumptives. The doctor found an efficient helper in his plans in Mr. Weddon, a Southern man of enterprise, who has establish the mountains hitherto almost impassable. "If more of the Southern men," said Mrs. Mulock, "had the common-sense to know how to put their shoulders to the wheel, and energy to do it, the cart would have been out of the mire long ago." "But they haven't," said her husband, snappishly, looking at the Judge. "They even thrust back the help that would take it out." They were bowling along at the time in an open spring wagon, on a good road, which led up to the little hamlet of Waynesville. There was a dash of fine rain now and then, as a low cloud broke against a peak, followed by a sudden sparkle in the blue air and wet trees. There was a singular exhilaration in the breath of these cold highlands, in the endlessness and calm of the mountains. The Virgin ian had secured a seat by Sarah. He had not spoken since they started, but it seemed to him that he had been talking to her all the time-had been telling her passionately all the history of his life. from the idle fire-eating college days to the poverty, loneliness, and hard drudgery which he left behind him last week. As he was carried swiftly along, the great silent forest opened and closed behind him again. It received him into an incomprehensible comfort and good-will. This fresh, pure young girl was beside him. Sometimes exorbitant, he could smell a rose which she wore in her breast. It seemed as if they would so go on and on forever; he did not know whither, nor did he care. this scenery, sir, ought to bring in droves of Northern tourists every summer, scattering money. And the timber and mineral resources! Look at the mica, and the coal, and iron, and copper, and corundum. Northern men would buy this waste land if they saw it, and presently, when times mended, open mines and railroads. But they shut the door in our faces. Rates on South He was wakened by the Doctor's punching his knee. "I was saying, Judge, that if these Southern people are buried, they dig their own graves. Why, ON THE ROAD TO ASHEVILLE. and in the big hotels ditto. We paid as much for a surfeit of greasy fried chicken and pork, vilely served, at Salisbury, as for a meal at the best hotel in New York. They drive away the goose before it has time to lay a golden egg." "The mountaineers will not overcharge you," said the Judge, gently. "If we should stop at one of these huts without windows, and bring the bahr FACE footed woman in from her ploughing toh cook us a dinner, she would give us the inevitable chicken, delicious corn-bread, milk, plenty of vegetables and honey, and either make no charge at all, or be satisfied with ten cents. At the mountain village inns, school-boys who go out toh hunt or fish are charged about six dollars a month, and their fathers, double.". "What do you think of that, George?" said Mrs. Mulock, triumphantly. "And there certainly is a flavor of hearty kindliness in even an inn welcome at the South which we Northerners know nothing of." and beauty, and flowers," thought the grizzled little man, shrugging his shoulders. "I left it behind me long ago. It is more my business now to tell the price of board." The chilly sunshine was fading from the top of the mountains when they reached Waynesville-a crooked little street which creeps leisurely along a mountain summit, with a few gray houses dropped uncertainly at either side. The store had a shady porch in front, and there lounged a dozen men, the male population of the village, watching black Sam pick the banjo and dance Juba; an old hunter sat smoking on a roll of wolf-skins flung down on the grass, which he had brought all the way from the Indian country of Qualla; the clergyman and doctor were playing backgammon on a table set under a great elm in the middle of the street. The whole village looked up with a faint surprise when our party of travellers arrived, and then calmly returned to its game and gossip and banjo. The clean tiny inn (principally made up of porches bulging out under enormous trees) would not hold all of the travellers. Morley and the Judge found lodging over the store. But they all gathered presently in an upper porch to watch the night close down over the peaks which walled them in. "Sup Mistress Bright, the landlady, appeared, with a pleasant face of welcome. per's ready. Yon's a storm coming, too, and quick. Old Balsam's had his cap on all day," she said, pointing to a wisp of silvery mist about the head of a high hill which shadowed the hamlet. Before they could leave the porch there was a fierce hissing rush; the earth and air seemed to rock, and they were wrapped in a total darkness. Then the cloud bore down on them in sheets of blinding rain; the thunder burst in the far horizon, while pale greenish electric flames revealed wwwwww |