In the Wilderness

the aid of the sun, tells the Keene people when it is time to eat dinner. From its summit you look south into a vast wilderness basin, a

Top,-the latter a local name which neither the mountain nor the fastidious tourist is able to shake off. Indeed, so

This opening between them is called Hunter's Pass. It is the most elevated and one of the wildest of the mountain passes. Its summit is thirty-five hundred feet high. In former years it is presumed the hunters occasionally followed the game through; b

ng tributaries, goes brawling through the forest basin, and at last comes out an amiable and boat-bearing stream in the valley of Elizabeth Town. From the summit another rivulet trickles away to the south, and finds its way through a frightful tamarack swamp, and through woods scarred by ruthless lumbering, to Mud Pond, a quiet body of water, with a ghastly fringe of dead trees, upon which people of grand intentions and weak vocabulary are trying to fix the name of Elk Lake. The descent of the pass on that side is precipitous and exciting. The way is in the stream itself; and a considerable portion of the distance we swung ou

sin. I think I can see now the procession of them between the heights of Dix and Nipple Top; the elk and the moose shambling along, cropping the twigs; the heavy bear lounging by with his exploring nose; the frightened deer trembling at every twig that snapped beneath his little hoofs, intent on the lily-pads of the pond; the raccoon and the hedgehog, sidling along; and the velvet-footed panther, insouciant and conscienceless, scenting the path with a curious glow in his eye, or crouching in an overhanging tree ready to drop into the procession at the right moment. Night and day, year after year, I see them going by, watched by the red fox and the comfortably clad sable, and grinned at by the black cat,-the innocent, the vicious, the timid and the savage, the shy and the bold, the chattering slanderer and the scr

bottoms and sugar-camps of its fringing woods, I suppose the red Indian lived here in his usual discomfort, and was as restless as his successors, the summer boarders. But the streams were full of trout then, and the moose and the elk left their broad tracks on the sands of the river. But of the Indian there is no trace. There is a mound in the valley, much like a Tel in the country of Bashan beyond the Jordan, that may have been built by some pre-h

the form of the dish. It is a bowl about nine inches high and eight inches across, made of red clay, baked but not glazed. The bottom is round, the top flares into four comers, and the rim is rudely but rather artistically ornamented with criss-cross scratches made when the clay was soft. The vessel is made of clay not found about here, and it

bly killed by the Spaniards in the West Indies); the Red Indians; the Keene Flaters (from Vermont); and the Summer Boarders, to say nothing of the various races of animals who have been unable to live her

lore the rough summit of this crabbed hill, which is too broken and jagged for pleasure and not high enough for glory. This desire was stimulated by a legend related by our guide that night in the Mud Pond cabin. The guide had never been through the pass before; although he was familiar with the region, and had ascended Nipple Top in

ation, and with seeming reluctance gave us any particulars about it. I always admire this art by which the accomplished story-teller lets his listener drag the reluctant tale of the marvelous from him, and makes you in a manner

p of a furnace. Settlers were few in the wilderness then, and all the inhabitants were well known. If the cave was inhabited, it must be by strangers, and by men who had some secret purpose in seeking this seclusion and eluding observation. If suspicious characters were seen about Port Henry, or if any such landed from the steamers on the shore of Lake Champlain, it was impossibl

on nor comparison; they would have had a shrine in the cave, and an image of the Blessed Virgin, with a lamp always burning before it and sending out its mellow light over the savage waste. A more probable notion was that they were romantic Frenchmen who had grow weary of vice and refinement together,-possibly princes, expectants of the throne, Bourbon remainders, named Williams or otherwise, unhatched eggs, so to speak, of kings, who had withdrawn out of observation to wait for the next turn-over in Paris. Frenchmen do such things. If they were not Frenchmen, they might be honest-thieves or criminals, escaped from justice or from the friendly state-prison of New York. This last supposition was, however, more violent t

ed a clew to their true character. But about this the strangers were as close as mice. If anything could betray them, it was the steady light from the cavern, and its occasional ruddy flashing. This gave rise to the opinion, which was strengthened by a good many indications equally conclusive, t

r been disproved,-these strangers whose movements were veiled belonged to that dark and mysterious race whose presence anywhere on this continent is a nest-egg of romance or of terror. They were Spaniards! You need not say buccaneers, you need not say gold-hunters, you n

rom silver tankards, and then throwing themselves back upon divans, and lazily puffing the f

think he showed some boldness in venturing into such a place alone. I confess that, before I went in, I should want to fire a Gatling gun into the mouth for a little while, in order to rout out the bears which usually dwell there. He went in, however. The entrance was low; but the cave was spacious, not large, but big enough, with a level floor and a vaulted ceiling. It had long been deserted, but that it was once the residence of highly civilized beings there could be no doubt. The dead brands in th

hair hung, as if the owner had carelessly flung it there before going out an hour before, a man's waistcoat. This waistcoat seemed to him of foreign make and peculiar style, but what endeared it to him was its row of metal buttons. These buttons were of silver! I forget now whether he did not say they were of silver coin, and that the coin was Spanish. But I am not certain about this latter fact, and I wish to cast no air of imp

ay with. The guide distinctly remembers playing with them; one of them he kept for a long time, and he didn't know but he could find it now, but he guessed it had disappeared. I regretted that he had not treasured this slender verification of an interesting romance, but he said in those days he never paid much attention to such things. Lately he has tu

nd the most interesting kind of crowbar. This evidence is enough for me. I intend in the course of this vacation to search for the cav