Chapter XI: Introduction (10)

At sight, of the rocky fords of this stream, the traveler would naturally form the opinion that it flows through wild, rugged scenery, in a country devoid of clearings. There is, however, fine farming land, cleared and occupied, along Big Rock creek. One portion of it, in particular, of soil rich and fertile, is settled by a prosperous and hard-working class of people, who, during the late war, sided with the North. It is now said that they will allow none, except white men, to stay, either permanently or as day laborers, in their community. The reason given is that they fought to liberate the negro from bondage, and, having thus helped him, they wish to be free from all contact with him. The same feeling prevails in other isolated localities through the mountains, one being on the Little Tennessee, in the region of its lower reaches, near the state line.

Bakersville, with a population of 500 people, is eight miles down from the summit of the Roan. It is situated on Cane creek. The town has been in existence only twenty-one years, is substantially built up, and growing rapidly. The mica interests are doing considerable to enrich it. An Indian town was once situated here, and to this day, although unused for 100 years, the old beaten trail of the red man, leading from Turkey Cove to the Nollichucky, is still visible, by the bank of the creek, under the bending grasses which grow along its edges, but still refuse to spring where the moccasin-footed aborigines, for probably centuries, wended back and forth from Tennessee.

Here, near the village, for one night’s encampment, in the course of their flight from Morganton, halted the “Franks” with “Nollichucky Jack,” their spirited and beloved leader. The details of his escape from trial are given in another chapter.

The 400 acres of valley, in which the town is situated, was a land grant of 1778, from North Carolina to William Sharpe and John McKnitt Alexander, clerk of the famous Mecklenburg convention. The old grant, with the surveyor’s plat of date September 30, 1770, and the great wax seal of the state attached, is among the archives of the county.

The Clarissa mica mine, in operation about three miles from the village, is a point of attraction for the tourist. At present work is going on more than 400 feet under ground, the passage down being through a dismal hole. If you attempt the descent, the daylight will be appreciated on your return.

The blocks of mica, after being blasted from the quartz and granite walls in which they lie embedded, are brought to the company’s shop in Bakersville. Here it is again sorted, the bent and otherwise worthless mica being thrown aside. That which appears merchantable is piled on the table before the workmen. Block by block it is taken and split into sheets, sufficiently thin to be cut by large iron shears. Specks or flaws in the mica are discovered by the workman holding each sheet, in turn, between his eyes and the light through a window, before him. The defects are remedied by again splitting the piece and taking off the thin defective layer. When entirely clear it is marked off in rectangular shapes, with patterns, and then cut by the shears. The sizes are assorted, and then wrapped and tied in pound packages. The value of mica ranges from half a dollar to three or four dollars per pound, the price depending upon the size.

The Sink-hole mines, near Bakersville, now abandoned, have some interesting facts connected with them. Years ago, a series of closely-connected, round, basin-like holes in the soil of a slope, creating some curiosity as to why and by whom they were formed, induced investigations. One was dug into, and in the center of its bottom, embedded in the rock, was discovered a vein of mica, which was followed until exhausted. The other holes were then worked in turn by the miners, several thousand dollars’ worth of mica being obtained. All efforts to strike the vein, beyond the line of the holes, proved unsuccessful. There was no mica discovered in the vicinity outside the sink-holes. In some of them curious stone tools were found, and the surface of the rock, around the mica blocks, in many instances, was chipped and worn, as though done by instruments in the hands of persons trying to extricate the mica. These ancient operations are attributed to the Mound Builders. In this connection, I had a conversation with Garret Ray, of Burnsville, containing the following:

When a boy, Mr. Ray had his attention attracted by a line of stone posts set, with about fifteen feet of space between each, on a mountain slope of his father’s farm. Years after, upon gaining possession of the property, he carried into execution a long-cherished idea of investigating the mystery of these posts. They marked a valuable mica vein, whose limits did not extend beyond them. There was no evidence that the located vein had ever been worked. By what surface indications or arts the mica was first discovered by the pre-historic practical miners, can only be answered by an oracle.

Many other traces have been discovered through the mountain country of a people who inhabited it before the advent of the Cherokees. Among the numerous mounds to be seen by the traveler in the broad valleys of the region, the one at Franklin undoubtedly takes precedence in shapeliness of outline. A few years since it was opened and a quantity of stone tools and ornaments taken from it. Eight miles southeast of Franklin, in the year 1820, soon after the transfer of that section by the Cherokees to the whites, a negro tenant of Silas McDowell, while at work plowing, discovered, fifteen inches under ground, a stratum of charcoal, and under this a burned clay slab, bearing on its lower side the imprint of the face and form of a man. Unfortunately, the slab, which was seven by four feet in dimensions, was broken into pieces, thus destroying a relic of untold value to the archæologist. The former inmate of this sepulchre was probably buried and then cremated by the race, according to its religious rites.

The Pigeon valley has been a great field for the relic hunter. Mr. Osborne, living about three miles south of the Pigeon River station, has, for a number of years, acted as an agent for a Richmond gentleman, in collecting the most curious of the ornaments and pieces of pottery turned up by the farmer’s plows. At least 2,000 of these relics have passed through his hands. Among a few which the writer saw at Mr. Osborne’s farm-house, was a group of men seated around a great bowl and smoking the pipe of peace. It consisted of one entire piece of soapstone, the figures being sculptured in correct proportions. They were raised about three inches above the ground part on which they were resting. Another was of two men struggling with a bear. Thousands of arrow and spear heads have been found in the valley. That the latter have no commercial value is evident from the fact that the long walks from the front fence to the house of the above mentioned farmer, are paved with them. Stone walls upon hill slopes have been unearthed in the vicinity. After this digression let us return to the journey.

The ride, by the nearest road from Bakersville to Burnsville, will lead the traveler for some distance along the banks of the Toe river. Deep, wide fords are to be crossed, and lonely forests ridden through. To the lover of nature, the solitude of some portions of the road will have in them nothing of a depressing nature. Burnsville is described in another chapter. From the latter village the road leads direct to Asheville. The dark outlines of the Black mountains are visible throughout a great part of the way. The road was in splendid condition when I traveled over it, and enabled me, with a sound horse, to arrive, in good shape, in the county seat of Buncombe, after an interesting horse-back journey of more than 300 miles.

BEYOND IRON WAYS.

If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows that thou would’st forget,
If thou would’st read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills!--No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
_Longfellow._

ainly the mountaineers beside the ancient stage-road, up the Blue Ridge from McDowell county into Buncombe may listen for the old-time winding of the driver’s bugle, the rumbling of strong-spoked wheels, and the rattling of trace-chains; or wait to see the familiar outlines of four gray horses, hallooing reinsman and loaded Concord stage swinging round some bold cliff, and drawing nearer up the rich green avenue of the forest: the days of staging by this route into Asheville are over. But “Jehu” with his prancing steeds and swaying coach is not, in this region, a being of the past; for the whistle of the locomotive has only served to drive him further into the mountains.

To those who are little familiar with stage-riding, there is in it something of pleasing novelty. I never see the old red vehicle lumbering along without having awakened in my mind some one of Dickens’ many vivid pictures of rapid drives, where, in his words:--“Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we strike into ruts and stick there. The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us.”

One of the stage routes, now in operation, is from the present terminus of the Western North Carolina railroad at Pigeon River, to Waynesville, ten miles distant. If the time-table is the same it was when we last traveled over the new-laid rails from Asheville, up the Hominy valley, over dizzy trestle-works, and burst through a narrow mud-cut between the hills into the wide valley of the Pigeon;--if it is this way, I say, the tourist will take a late dinner at a large brick farm-house beside the station, and then secure a place with the colored driver on the top of the stage. A jolly crowd is packed away inside. Perhaps, if you are an agreeable fellow, one of the young ladies may prefer a perch outside with you, and thus help to fill up the boot and hinder the spread of the reinsman’s elbows as he rounds some of the coming curves. Trunks and band-boxes are piled up behind you. You wave your hand to the landlord; the driver gives a parting wink at the cook who is peering through the shutters of the kitchen; and then, responsive to the crack of the whip, the horses start, and whirling behind it a cloud of dust, the stage begins its journey.

There is nothing particularly enchanting about the landscape for the next ten miles. The road beneath is beaten hard, and smooth as a floor. It is not always so agreeable riding over, however, for it is of red clay; and in winter, with snows, thaws, and rains, it becomes almost impassible. They tell of empty wagons being stalled in places during the inclement seasons. I have a vivid recollection of helping, one dark April night, to unload a light Jersey wagon, drawn by two stout horses, in order to release the hub-deep sunken wheels, and allow us to proceed on our way from Waynesville.

Now a broad valley is whirled through, with humble cottages along the way; then a hill is ascended, the stage rising slowly, and then rattling on behind the lively trotting of the horses as you pass down the opposite declivity. The driver over mountain roads always trots his horses going down hill. It is necessary in order to make up for the delay incurred in the long, wearisome ascents, and the horses, in contradiction to first principles, appear to stand up well under it.

Again you strike the Big Pigeon. Concealed by its wood-bordered banks, it has passed through the valley, and now through vistas of vines, azaleas, chinquapin bushes, locust and beech trees, reveals its limpid waters, swift and slow, in turns, as the basin is deep, or a pebble-shingled bottom throws it in splashing rapids. Pairs of whistling sand-pipers run teetering over the sands, and then fly on down the river at your noisy approach; turtle doves, with “shocking tameness,” only rise from the road when some of the pebbles, struck up by the horses, shower around them; a surly dog, from a weather-worn dwelling, leaps through the broken pickets of the fence, and for a hundred yards follows, barking, close to the wheels; long open fields extend on one side; and then the driver, with foot on the break, with loud “whoa,” stops the sweating horses before a country store. He reaches down under his feet, into the giant pocket of the stage, and draws forth a pad-locked leather mail-bag which he tosses down into the outstretched arms of the bare-headed post-master, grocer, and township magistrate combined.

“How yer to-day, squire?” asks the driver.

“Good. How’s yourself?”

“Bettah.”

“Who you got inside?”

“Party from Alabam’, I reckon.”

“Where they going?”

“White Sulphur; an’ say, look a heah, foh dis in-foh-ma-shun bring me out a twist o’ backer.”

The recipient of the bag passes through a crowd of six or eight men about the door-way, and enters the store. A few minutes elapse in which the “Jehu” fires some tongue shots at the loungers; then the mail-bag is returned, the foot is taken from the break, the whip cracks, and away you go. Another store is passed with a saw-mill opposite to it, and the river, blocked until it spreads to twice its customary breadth, pouring and thundering over a substantial dam. The noise of waters and the saw is deafening; then, in a twinkling, it is all still, and you are trotting along between green hedges, and great clouds of dust envelope the barking dogs which follow.

Along the way is seen the prepared trail for the iron horse which is to supersede stage-travel;--the great yellow dirt embankments through the fields; the deep grading sinking dizzily close at the roadside; the short curves through narrow valleys, and the swallowing of it all by the solitary woods.

If you are fortunate enough to ride with the same good-natured driver whom we had, and he is in mellow mood, you may be interested for an hour by a story which he is fond of telling. For fear that you might get the wrong man, I will tell it in condensed form.

In the fall of 1877, the driver was employed on the stage route from Asheville to Henry’s. He was an old reinsman, but the road was unfamiliar to him from the fact of his being only lately transferred from another branch. One afternoon in November, with the highway slippery under-foot from a cold sleet, he left Asheville with the heavy stage and a party of five persons inside,--an old, white-haired man and four women. He was unavoidably delayed at different points, so that, when he began the actual descent of the Blue Ridge, a black, cold night enveloped the landscape. With his teeth chattering, he lighted the lamps, drew on his gloves again, mounted to his place, and began rumbling downward. Over-head the trees creaked and groaned in the hollow blast; the horses slipped in turns as they pushed along, and the huge stage would occasionally slide, in spite of the locked brake, down on the flanks of the rear span. Even with this uncomfortable state of affairs, he could have driven along without much hazard, but suddenly the lamps went out. Through strange carelessness he had forgotten to refill them when he left the stables. The darkness was like that of a soundless mine: it was almost palpable. Staggered with the situation, he checked his horses. He must go on, but how could he? Near at hand he knew was the most dangerous place in the whole road, where even a slight pull to one side would send the stage and its occupants rolling down a declivity, steep, deep and rugged enough to smash the former, and kill every one of the latter. The horses, accustomed to the way, might possibly be trusted; but then that possibility! It was too slippery to lead them, and besides his foot must be on and off the break in turns. It was imperative for him to be at Henry’s that night, both on account of his express duties and his passengers, who would freeze before morning. He sat shivering on the stage top.

He heard the stage door open below, but knew not for what reason, nor whose feet were striking the ground, until a voice came up out of the pitchy darkness:

“Why don’t you go on?”

It was the old gentleman who spoke.

“Can’t. Don’t you see de lamps ar’ out?”

“What of that? We must go on.”

“Dar’s a bad pitch right yeh, an’ I wouldn’t risk hit foh no money.”

“Do you know exactly where we are? I can’t distinguish anything.”

“Yes, at de cliff spring.”

“The cliff spring. I remember it. All right;” and, saying this, the elderly passenger was climbing up beside the driver. “Let me take the reins,” he continued.

“You!” exclaimed the driver.

“Yes. I know this road like a book. I’ve driven over it many as dark nights as this, during forty years of my life.”

And as the driver told it to me: “I done jist let dat ole man pull dem ribbans outer my han’s, an’ I hel’ onter de brake, while he put dose hosses down aroun’ dat ben’; an’ in less ’en an houh we wuz stannin’ afoah de Henry hotel. Hit beat de debbil how dat wrinkled, rich-lookin’ ole fellah driv! Couldn’t fine out a ting ’bout him; no one peered ter know him. An’ I’m done badgered ter know who he wuz, enny how. He’d a made a crackin’ ole stage drivah; an’ dar’s no use talkin’ on dat pint!”

So went the story. Meanwhile your journey is progressing. The stage has rattled around a bend, leaving the neat, home-like, brick dwelling of Dr. Samuel Love, on the top of a wooded hill, beside the road; and then, before you, stretches an enchanting mountain landscape. On the summit of a plateau-like expanse, in the center of the scene, is a picturesque village. You see the clustered white frame and brick buildings, with the smoke curling above them from home fires; the modest church steeples, and, perhaps, if it is growing dusky, you may hear the mellow chiming of bells through the evening air. Majestic mountains rise on all sides into the blue sky. Afar, Old Bald, his brethren Balsams, Lickstone mountain, and Mount Serbal, lift their heads. In lofty outlines, the Junaluska group of Balsams stand black against the glowing western sky. Across a low, plank bridge, which covers a little stream coming from the rabbit-haunted hedges of a valley meadow,--up a mild declivity of hill,--through a long, yellow street with dwellings, a church, a court-house, a jail, hotels, and stores, on either side,--and you are in the center of Waynesville.

Waynesville, the county-seat of Haywood, is 2,756 feet above the ocean. Of the peaks in sight around it, five attain a height of 6,000 feet and upwards. Every mountain is clothed from base to summit with heavy woods. That chain arising in the south in lofty outlines, black with firs, is the Balsam. The Haywood mountains, bounding the northern line of vision, are, owing to their distance, arrayed in purple, and usually crowned with white masses of clouds, which at sunset turn to orange, run to molten gold and then blazing with scarlet resolve into darkness. The village occupies the most elevated portion of the plateau. Two parallel streets, crossed by four or five shorter ones, make up the general ground-work of the town. Interspersed with vacant, weed-grown lots, the dwellings and buildings, occupied by about 300 people, face on these winding thoroughfares. A few locust trees border the rough, stony walks. Apple and peach trees hang over thickly-planted gardens within the unpainted long board fences before many of the houses.

The head-center for daily congregation seems to be the postoffice. Its red-mud-splattered front and porch-posts whisper of a rainy season and stamping horses to the tourist who stands on the hard level road. The mosses on the porch roof also speak of dampness and age. Opposite the post-office, in 1882, was still standing, intact and in use, the county’s venerable hall of justice. To some it may appear a sarcasm to use that title for it: still, justice is no less likely to preside in pristine purity within battered, worm-eaten doors, above a tan-bark floor, under a low ceiling, and surrounded by dingy walls, than within frescoed ceilings, stone walls and chiseled columns!

“For Justice
All place a temple, and all season, summer!”

However, the court days for the old hall are past. A new and imposing brick structure has just been erected at the north end of the village. That an air of enterprise is circulating is evident. Numerous new buildings, with fresh-painted or brick fronts have lately arisen in place, making striking contrasts with the old rookeries of fifty years existence standing here and there.

The village was named in honor of “Mad Anthony” Wayne in the long gone years of its birth. Until the last half decade of years it has rested in a quiet little less profound than that of the dreamy valleys around it. Of late new energy has been infused into it. The world beyond the mountain limits of this hidden hamlet is beginning to hear of it as a summer resort. Acting upon this knowledge, the tourists with every season now come trooping up from the low-lands. The grading, bridges, and embankments for the railroad are all completed, and even before many months Waynesville will have the cars within its corporate boundaries.

In all the mountain towns court-week is the marked event of the year. There is a spring and fall term. As the counties increase in population, the two terms are frequently lengthened into weeks. At such times the village streets are packed with a mass of humanity. The court might well be likened to a magnet, the limit to its attraction being the boundaries of the county; and within that circle, during the periods of its operation, having an irresistible, invisible power to draw every citizen into the county-seat. They are all there at some interval of its proceedings.

As a court-day in any one of the villages is typical of what is seen at such times in all the others, the writer will use as an illustration one which he spent in Waynesville. It was at the time of the fall term; the month being October. On the Sunday preceding the opening Monday, the honorable judge, having closed court in the neighboring county, drove into the village. The usual number of lawyers from scattered villages who go on the circuit soon came straggling in on horse-back not far in his honor’s wake. Later in the evening and the next morning others of the profession entered on foot, pursuing this method of traveling as though desirous of saving a little money, or perhaps having none either to save or spend. The days of the circuit are interesting ones for this legal coterie. It has its jovial, crusty, bumptious, bashful, boyish, and bald-headed members; old pettifoggers, young shysters, and the brilliant and erudite real attorney. The active out-door exercise enjoyed in following the court in his rounds tends to make the village lawyer a good-natured fellow, and besides, even if his practice is poor, he has no exorbitant office rent to worry him. He ought certainly to be a healthy, contented specimen of humanity.

Even before all the shop-keepers had opened their doors and swung back their shutters to exhibit newly stocked counters, the farming population began pouring in. Now and then the broad hat of a man on foot would appear above the crest of the hill; then would follow a strong team of horses drawing a white-covered, Pennsylvania wagon; next, a slow-moving ox team with hooped and canvassed vehicle. These tents on wheels would disgorge into the street either a whole family or a crowd of men evidently from the same neighborhood. On other occasions they (the wagons) loaded with apples and possibly a barrel of hard cider, would be longer in getting relieved of their contents. The Jerseys of independent valley farmers came rattling in at a later hour. The general way of coming to town, however, is in the saddle. Horses and mules, with good, easy gait, are always in demand through this country, and the number of them ranged along the street fences appears strange to the Northerner.

That morning I saw on the street several Indians from the banks of Soco creek twenty miles distant. They were not arrayed in the picturesque pomp of the savage, but in the garb of civilization--home-spun coats and pantaloons, muslin shirts, and black hats. One of them, mounted on a stout little bay pony, was trying to sell his animal to some one in a crowd of horse-traders. Ponies can be purchased of the Cherokees at prices ranging from forty to seventy-five dollars. At present, however, there are very few of the full-blooded stock in the reservation. The other aborigines whom I chanced to see were, with moccasined feet, threading their ways through the crowds of lighter-complexioned, blue-clothed dwellers of the forests.

The strongest drink sold openly during court-week is cider. Several wagons, holding barrels containing it, occupy stations close by the court-house door. A supply of ginger cake is sold with the cider. Whiskey can be procured at the drug store, but only on prescription. To the uninitiated it is a mystery where so many prescriptions come from; but perhaps a certain judge from a lower county, who some time since presided in this court, might rise and explain. The judge in question was exhausted from travel, and badly under the weather. Upon his arrival in the village he dispatched a negro to the drug store for a bottle of this singularly accredited panacea for all evils. The druggist refused to comply with the request, sending back word that he was obliged in all cases to conform to the requirements of the law, and that his honor should consult a physician. Later in the day the judge himself appeared at the drug store, and taking a package of paper from his pocket, cooly counted off sixteen prescriptions. Said he:

“I have consulted my physician. You may fill one of these now; hang the others on your hook, and fill them as I send my order.”

Whether the judge called for them all during the time he presided on that bench, is no part of the story.

In the practice before the bar of the tribunal there is no marked difference between the proceedings of the mountain county court and those of the courts of other states practicing under the code. It has a peculiar but beneficent feature, however, in the rapidity with which cases are disposed of. One great end of justice, too frequently neglected--that wrongs shall be promptly righted--is hereby secured. A false and irreversible judgment of the court occurring, as may be, upon too hasty examination of a case, is no worse for the litigant than the trial of the heart between hope and despair for long, weary years before a decision is rendered, even though that decision be just.

I witnessed one murder case disposed of in two days, when, anywhere in the North, the same trial would have occupied as many weeks. The call of the crier from an upstairs window announced that the court was open. During the course of the morning I went in. Seats arranged on a scale ascending from the lawyers’ tables to the rear wall were crowded to overflowing. The single aisle was filled so that one could hardly elbow one’s way in. The crowd changed considerably in its make-up during the morning session; for uninterested auditors were continually sliding out of one of the handy windows and others crawling in to fill the vacancies. Some wormed their way out through the aisle.

In regular routine, cases were called, facts stated by attorneys, usual examination and brow-beating of witnesses, wrangling of counsel, hammering for order by the sheriff, the old practitioner’s quiet and plausible argument to the drowsy jury, the spread-eagle burst of oratory on the part of the fresh blossomed sprig of the law, the charge of the judge (which, in truth, is generally the settlement of the whole proceeding), and then the departure of the twelve confused peers to a house on a back street, or a vacant lot near by, where, on a pile of lumber, they resolve the abstruse questions involved and bring in a verdict according to the facts.(?) Judgment pronounced forthwith, or suspended on motion.

At 12 o’clock the court adjourned, and the crier appearing at the front door gave vent in high-strung monotone to the following: “Hear ye! hear ye! This honorable court is now adjourned.” Here he took breath and went on again: “The good people of Haywood will take notice that at 2 o’clock the Honorable General Clingman will address them on the issues of the day!”

This sounded queer to a stranger; court adjourning to give way for a political speech. A number of elections were to take place in November. It was fit that the people should be prepared to cast their ballots with discretion. In accordance with this view, during that fall term of court, the respective candidates of either party for the offices of solicitor, representative, senator, and state offices were given the afternoons of the session to enlighten the populace with their wisdom on state and municipal affairs, and sway them with their eloquence. With the afternoon speeches, ended the court day.

The White Sulphur Spring Hotel is three-quarters of a mile from the village. It was by the stage line that we approached it in the summer of 1882. The mail-bags had been flung down to the good-natured-looking post-master, and several passengers distributed at the hotels on the village street, when we turned down a hill toward Richland creek, first passing several plain dwellings and two churches. One of the churches (the Episcopal) is a well-built little house of worship. The creek must be forded, and then follows a delightful stretch of road along its banks, until, after swinging around several corners, rattling over rivulet bridges, speeding by a house or two on knolls in fields, we passed through a frame gate into the grounds of the Sulphur Spring.

The grounds are naturally adapted for a summer resort. A grand forest, principally of oaks, covers about eight acres of level ground, through which, with green sward on either hand, winds the road toward the hotel. The hotel is a large farmhouse, remodeled and added to until its original proportions and design are lost. Near it, at the foot of a low wooded hill, is a line of cottages connected with the main structure simply by a graveled walk, which also leads to the sulphur spring bubbling up in a stone basin within a small summer-house. There is a comfortable, healthy air about the hotel and its surroundings.

Close in the rear of the resort buildings rises a line of mountains, lofty in height, but forming only the foot-hills to the Junaluska group. The highest pinnacle of the foot-hill range is Mount Maria, so named in honor of the wife of Major W. W. Stringfield, the proprietor of the Spring property. From the wide porches of the hotel sublime mountain prospects can be obtained. A smooth, cultivated valley, a mile or more in length, by a half-mile wide, fills the foreground to these views. Some portions of it are covered with corn, and in the meadows are generally grazing a hundred head of cattle. A pleasant pastoral air pervades this foreground picture set in the emerald frame of the forests. And then in the distance is discerned the green front of Mount Serbal, and beyond it the black summits of the Richland Balsam mountains. Just across the creek, which flows outside the grounds, lies the prepared railroad bed. It is only a minute’s walk from it to the hotel.

Of all country roads for quiet rambles or delightful horseback rides, there are none in the mountains to excel the one up Richland creek, from the White Sulphur Spring, to the base of Old Bald. The forests all along the stream are cool and refreshing. Where the road comes down to its fords under the concealing chestnuts and oaks, long foot-logs reach from bank to bank. The old mill at one of these fords presents a picture for the artist--the brilliant beech that rustles around it; the crystal race; the roar in the flume; the piles of old logs and scattered timber; and the open, dingy front of the structure itself.

On crossing the state road, the Richland creek road enters a large, unfenced forest, where nearly every evening, in spring, summer, or fall, teamsters, who are either farmers or root buyers, encamp for the night. Their Pennsylvania wagons are like great white-covered scows strangely mounted on wheels. At night, with the light of camp fires thrown on them, they are spectral in their whiteness. Often, in the darkness of the forest, while on our way from the village to our temporary home in the country, we have suddenly run upon these encampments after their fires have smouldered, and only been awakened to a knowledge of their presence by the sharp barking of wakeful dogs.

One particular night, well worth remembering, I was returning on foot from Waynesville after a late wait there for the irregular evening mail. It was cloudy and quite dark, even where the state road, which I was trudging over, runs between open fields. On branching into the Richland creek road and into the forest just mentioned, the change to still deeper darkness would have made it difficult for me to avoid stumbling over the rocks that here and there are scattered on the way, and even to keep clear of tree boles, if the bright light of a high fire had not

illuminated the outer margin of the wood. Under a gigantic poplar two large white wagons were visible, and between them was the fire. A group of men was seated near it. At my approach two dogs sprang up growling from the scattered hay where the horses were feeding, but at the warning yell of some one who was evidently their master, they became quiet again. The group consisted of four men seated on the end boards taken from the wagons, and laid on the ground. They were playing cards, and having a good time. I was about to pass on, but recognizing the face and voice of one member of the party, I stepped up to them, and was in turn recognized by him.

“Wal, glad to see you,” said he, dropping the pack of cards he was dealing, and jumping to his feet.

“Howdy!” exclaimed the others in turn as I spoke to each. “Why, what are you skulking round the woods so late at night for?” continued the first speaker.

He was a good-natured and intelligent young man, by name Upson, whom I had met once before in an adjoining county at a country store, where he was exchanging dry-goods and tinware for ginseng, Solomon’s snake roots, herbs and mica. I answered his question, and upon urgent invitation seated myself by the fire. Two of the party were going to Asheville to attend Federal court. The elderly man and owner of one wagon was journeying in company with the young trader and his wagon to the Asheville market. The interrupted game of seven-up was never resumed. In the course of conversation Upson spoke of mica mining, and after stating that he was a Georgian, and had been in the mountains only a few years, he related a thrilling story, which I will give as nearly as possible in his own words, and call it

THE HAUNTED CABIN.

On one of the highest ridges of the Nantihala mountains, twenty-five miles from Franklin, Tabal and I had been out prospecting for mica for several days. With a blanket apiece, a pick, a spade and a quantity of provisions we had left the valley, intending to open a spot on the mountain, where mica had been discovered cropping out. All the afternoon of the 26th of February, and all day of the 27th, we worked at the surface mica, and had followed a promising vein of the mineral for several feet into the crumbling rock. The weather had been fine, and the night of the last mentioned date came on with fair and clear skies. Wrapped in our blankets, we slept by a roaring fire, under a shelving rock, in a thicket of black firs. By morning the weather had changed; a cold wet wind was sighing through the pines; the sky was overcast with dull heavy clouds, and the last day of February bid fair to end in a snow storm.

Tabal was rather uneasy, and wished to start for the settlement immediately; but with a nicely sorted-out pile of mica at our feet, and a solid block twelve inches square shining from the bottom of the excavation, I insisted on remaining until there was a decided change for the better or worse; so, after our morning repast, we went steadily to work again.

We did not notice the increasing coldness of the wind, and were only awakened to a sense of our dangerous position, when snow began to fall. To be caught on a mountain summit over 6,000 feet high in a snow storm was something little to be desired; and, with that idea, Tabal threw down his pick and proposed starting with haste for the settlement. Affairs did look threatening, and I concluded that his proposition was not to be despised. Hiding our tools and mica, with our blankets over our shoulders, we struck out on the trail for the valley.

The snow fell thicker and faster around us; and at the end of our first mile it was an inch deep. The way-worn path beneath our feet was of the same appearance as the forest slopes, all seeming one open wilderness, with nothing but occasional blazes on the scrub-oak tree trunks to mark the path of descent. Tabal needed nothing of the kind to find his way. So familiar is he with the whole range that, in the darkest night he could reach the valley without a wandering footstep. After two hours of slow travel the snow lay shoe-mouth deep, and the bitter wind, as it swept across the ridges, chilled and buffeted us, until, half frozen, with wet and benumbed feet, exhausted by ten miles of wading, and bruised by falls and slides, I felt my strength giving way. It was then half-past four by my watch; the snow was a foot in depth, and still falling.

“Only three mile further,” said my companion, when he noticed how I was lagging in my pace, “and we’ll fetch up at Ramear’s cabin. Cheer up, man, an’ in a few minutes we’ll be all right, I ’low.”

With this encouragement I quickened my footsteps and struggled on. Another mile had been slowly reeled out behind us; we had left the ridge and were in a hollow or cove, when a cabin suddenly appeared before us.

The place was one of the wildest and dreariest of the mountains. On one side rose a forest of balsams; with somber foliage covered with the white mantle of the storm; almost perpendicularly upward it trended. Tangled laurel spread over the bottom land, and interwoven with the ivy, hedged the banks of a stream fresh from its sources. On the other side a rocky bluff, crowned with snow and clad in evergreen vines, loomed up like the crumbling wall of some ancient castle, with its summit lost in the veil of the falling snow.

The cabin was jammed into a niche of this wall some twenty feet above the path we were following. It was a log hut of the humblest pretensions, tottering from age and decay on its rock foundation. In the shadow of the precipice, most gloomy it appeared, with its snow-burdened roof, moss-grown front, rough-plastered log chimney, and doorless entrance opening into a black interior. It looked to have been deserted a score or more of years, and its surroundings, unkept by the hand of man, by Nature were again being trained into primitive wildness. A cataract came pouring down by the cabin’s site. A regular ascent of steps led up to it through the laurel.

In spite of the place’s uninviting aspect, I welcomed it as a safe refuge from the storm and the night. Tabal seemed not to see it, and was plodding steadily ahead a few feet in advance of me.

“Hold on!” I called. “Here is a shelter for the night. No need of going further.”

He turned with a strange expression in his face.

“For God sake, don’t stop hyar! We must go on. Nothin’ could hire me to stop in thet ’air shell.”

His set determined way of speaking, together with his words, I could not at that time account for, and without waiting for an explanation, replied: “Stop here we must, in half an hour ’twill be night,” and pushing through the snow-burdened laurel, in a few steps I gained the cabin door.

A violent hand was laid on my shoulder that instant. My blanket was almost torn from my grasp, and I reeled backward, with difficulty rescuing myself from falling.

It was Tabal who had thus struck me. Taken by surprise at his uncalled-for action, I could but listen to what he said.

“Come, come, we must make tracks from this place! You’d better die in the snow a peaceful death than be toted away by hants. Thar be a power ’o hants hyar. I’ve seed ’em an’ seed blood, blood! on the floor and nary man in the settlement but what’s heerd ’em. Don’t for all ye love in the world, don’t stop hyar, but foller me and in two mile we’ll be at Ramear’s.”

As he finished his excited remarks, with one hand still on my shoulder, he was standing partly in the cabin; while I, puzzled at his extraordinary statement, and with the earnest, almost desperate, manner in which he urged me to leave the spot, had sunk down on a half-rotten log that lay across the doorway. I really could have gone no further if I had wished, and instead of what I had heard from him awakening my fears and strengthening me to travel on, it aroused my curiosity to remain and see upon what his superstition was based.

On making known to him my exhausted condition and determination to remain, an abject terror overspread the mountaineer’s face, and for several minutes there was a struggle within him whether to stay and brave the well known horrors of the place, or to expose his cowardice by leaving and pushing on alone in the darkness and driving snow. The latter alternative did not hold out very bright prospects, and in spite of professed superstition, mountaineers dread nothing much more than being called cowards. Meanwhile I laughed down and shamed his fears, and the bribe of a half gallon of “moonshine” completed the business.

The gloom of the continuing storm, and the rapidly approaching night, rendered the gorge almost destitute of light. Every minute it grew darker, but objects about the interior of the cabin were still distinguishable. There was but one room, with rotten board floor, strewed with the mouldering leaves of several autumns, and grown with moss along the edges of the walls. Fungi choked the interstices between the logs, and over them snow had sifted, and fallen in streaks upon the floor. An unboarded window opposite to the solitary door looked out upon the grim, stony cliff that rose not ten feet away. A fire-place, filled with snow, was at the end of the room, and over three-fourths of the apartment was a loft, rather shaky in appearance.

We scraped the snow from the hearth; Tabal, under my instructions, tore off a pile of well-seasoned boards from the loft floor, and soon a crackling fire brightened and cheered the interior of the cabin. My companion was now more at his ease, and spreading our blankets, we laid down with our feet to the grateful fire.

As I spread out my blanket I noticed a pool of fresh blood, fully two feet in diameter on the floor by my hand. I covered it instantly, fearful that Tabal might see it. How did it come there?

“Tabal,” I said, “tell me now what you meant by this hut having ghosts or ‘hants’ as you term them; and why do you think it so haunted?”

He responded with a long story which I will make short: The cove had been cleared thirty years before by Cummings, a denizen of the mountains. One night when he was on a spree in the settlement, his wife, in a crazy fit, hung herself to a cabin rafter. Cummings, with his household property and progeny, deserted the premises, and for many years the cabin remained unoccupied, until a party of hunters made a night’s lodging there, and in an altercation a man named Gil True was instantly killed by an enraged companion. Strange sights and sounds were connected with it after the first death, and more after the second. Every superstitious old woman told some terrible tale about it, until it had become known throughout the country as the “haunted” cabin.

After this narrative the train of thoughts which it awakened and the strangeness of my situation prevented me from going immediately to sleep, and hours elapsed before I was in the arms of “Nature’s fond nurse.” Tabal’s regular snoring I suppose put me in that condition.

How long I slept I know not, but I awoke with a start. Terrible, blood-curdling cries, like those from a woman or child in distress, came from the end of the room opposite the chimney.

The fire was still blazing, and by it I saw that Tabal was awake, lying half raised from his blanket, and with eyes fixed on the back of the room, was intent on listening. Several piercing cries, with intervals between, rang out, and the last one had just died down, when there was a sound of some heavy body falling on the roof, a rumble, then a terrific crash, after which all was darkness, blackest darkness in the room.

Successive creakings of the cabin, and sputterings and hissings from the fire-place ensued.

I attempted to call out but could not.

I leaned over and reached, in the darkness, for my companion. He was not there--nowhere on his blanket, which I felt still unrolled. I groped around the room.

Nothing!

The room was deserted, and I was alone in the haunted cabin.

I leaned out of the door. It was as black outside as in. Again I attempted to call, and then my voice broke from me. The halloo rang out, echoed along the cliff, and instantly seemed swallowed by the night; but no answer came.

With these efforts courage returned, and I stepped back into the center of the apartment. As I did so, I heard a fall on the window, then one on the floor, and the pit-pat of feet sounded plainly as something brushed against my legs, and shot with sudden velocity out of the cabin door.

“What else,” I thought; “what other unaccountable things were to happen? Tabal was right; the cabin is haunted.”

I drew out a large clasp-knife from my pocket, opened it, and retreated to one corner of the room. I stirred not, scarcely breathed. For hours I stood there, as rigid as a statue. Again the foot-falls resounded through the room; again a fall on the window by the cliff--then death-like stillness again intervened.

In the black, unbroken silence, I heard nothing but the action of my heart, thumping, thumping, till it seemed it would beat the breath from my chest, and all the while I was, in vain, seeking a solution for these mysteries of the night. Where was Tabal? What caused the blood spots, the horrible cries, the crash, the fire’s extinguishment, and the foot-falls?

Gray light began to sift in. It grew stronger, brighter, and the light of morning filled the room. Black objects assumed regular outlines, became distinct, regained their natural shapes, and everything around me was revealed. There lay the tumbled blankets; the fire-place filled a foot high with snow. I started. The crash and following darkness were explained. A snow slide off the cliff had struck the roof and then fallen down the chimney.

I went to the door. A man’s footprints long and far between, led from the door-step down through the laurel. Tabal had disappeared in that direction. I expected to see footprints besides those of the mountaineer,--the footprints of the owner of the footfalls in the night,--but none were there, at least, no human tracks, but, instead, in the snow were prints like those of a dog. What did this mean?

I ran to the window. The same impressions were on the snow-covered sill, and then beyond on the near ledge of the cliff. Some animal had entered by the window, rushed through the cabin, and then re-entering, had retreated by the same way to the cliff. That it was a wild-cat or panther I was convinced; and this conviction was strengthened when my mind reverted to the cries, which were similar to those made by the cat species.

The whole mystery seemed cleared up. The wild, rugged precipice held on its face a den of panthers; the cabin was another retreat of theirs, and the bloody pool on the floor was the mark of some recent feast.

Gathering up the blankets I followed in Tabal’s footprints for half a mile, when I met him coming towards me with the settler he had remained with during a part of the previous night. My appearance to him was like one raised from the dead. We returned to the cabin, and my conclusions were confirmed by their immediate affirmations that, “nairy varmint but a painter hed made them tracks, an’ they ’lowed the cabin mought not be hanted arter all.”

Soon after this night’s adventure, a systematic hunt was organized; and in the chase four panthers which had had their hereditary den in the cliff’s face were killed. With this slaughter all reasonable fears of the cabin’s being haunted vanished, and now it is made the usual rendezvous for hunters driving bears or deer in that locality.

* * * * *

“Wal,” exclaimed one of the Federal court witnesses, “thet’s a blamed good way to git red o’ hants!”

“Now,” said Upson, directing his speech toward me, “we would like to hear from you.”

“I have no personal experience to relate,” I replied, “but can tell you something, similar in nature to your story, as it was told me by an old resident of Graham county.”

Immediately there was a hearty invitation extended me to begin; so without ceremony I preluded what follows with the announcement that the tale was the one of

THE PHANTOM MILLERS.

Three years ago, while taking a tramp through the wilderness of the Santeetlah and Unaka mountains, I stopped for a few days with an intelligent, elderly farmer on the bank of Cheowah river. One pleasant afternoon, during the time of my visit, I took a ramble with my host over his extensive farm. Through the cool woods, upward along the roaring stream, we slowly walked for probably half a mile, when suddenly the rough wagon-trail we were following led away from the river; and, looking through the thick undergrowth in the direction where with redoubled roar the waters still kept their way, I saw the outlines of an old building.

“What ancient looking structure is that?” I asked, pointing toward it.

“That,” my companion answered, “is a worn out mill.”

“Why,” I returned, “this is the first mill I have noticed on the river. It does, in fact, appear dilapidated; but, looking at the heavy thickets and tall trees that stand so close to it, I should think that at the time it was abandoned it might have been in pretty good condition. See, there’s a tree apparently fifteen years old thrusting its whole top through a window, and the casements that are around it are not yet rotted away.”

“You are a close observer,” said Mr. Staley, “but, nevertheless, we quit running that mill because it couldn’t be worked.”

“Why so?” I asked with interest.

“Because it was haunted!”

“Haunted! A haunted mill!”

“Yes, sir; the subject is one I don’t like to commence on, but I suppose now you must hear it.”