Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1880-07-08
n tie Mountain WILDERNESS OF yir.
ginia.

RAtAfAa
THE Journey occupied day and s
bali. They rode Indian Gle along
trad which only Jerry eyes could fol-
low; Il crossed heaps Of rocks, swamps,
iHllen trees, 1t lsd through. an upbro-
ken forest Of gigantic piHes. oaks, BIRCH
ash and sugarmaples. even the nut
trees and blact cherry had had time
here 10 reach the height of q hundred
aid 6fty feet Evcrgreens aud dSuid-
ious trees grew alike leahess and
branchless side by side, spreading palm
Ike AZ the top, The tourney vas. ,, y,
fact. passage through interminablG
aises of huge black pillars under Hat,
leafy roof. The sides of the creeks
were banked with flaming color; laurel
and rhododendrons heaped up walls OF
( dark green, scarlet and creamy white;
: in the sunshine late azaleas lifted wands
! Of shell-like rose.
/ There was no sign that man had evet
passed this way before. Huge trees,
fallen q century before, lay in gigantic
round burrows ON the ground; furrows
Of deep moss, Of fretted aud iluted
lichen gray and golden, Jronze and
purple and of trailing myriads Of pink
oxaiis. Plumy fern nodded from the
sides, and thicket of young hemlocks
pushed ambitiously up from the top OF
the ridge; but when jerry put his foot
on it, the whole furrow crumbled like
q pulf-ba into cloud of red dust. 1t
was a dead body, which, undisturbed
in the slow passage of uncounted years,
had made all this false show Of life
Very few song-birds had made their
way into this solitude. There was
none of the multitudnous hum OF life
of woods near towns. The absolute
stiffness was strange and oppressive at
MONDAY. Nature dwelt alone here,
and kept silence, and there was some
thing savage in her mood, now that
they had come upon her unawares.
Monstrous fungous growths reared
themselves on every side rs they began
TO descend to the Blackwater The
thickets grew more dense; red and
black spiders swung themselves inces'
sanity across their faces from tree to
tree; they found traces of bears or
newly barked trees, and more than once
the three .lobed, clawless track Of pan
ther in the wet, black mold. The thick
cts OF laurel and scrub oak ON th'
banks of the rivers give to these beast
and to wolves an imperyious shelter
they have the best chance there, too
of catching the deer as they come dow
to water. Browning pointed out darl
green shrub, which he said was sell
browse" and chad been made by tn
Good Man to grow Just that high T.
reach the muzzles of the young elks,
No elks had been seen in this region TO
fifty years, though some might yet b
hiding back in Canaan
The party camped the second nigh
ON the bank OF the Blackwater,
, stream which empties into the Cheai
making huts of birch bark, and beds {
hemlock boughs set on end TO give Il
elastic spring. The doctor and Morle
set out with their best white flies, rec
and lines to catch trout for supper
the cotfee-colored, gloomy creel
Browning took few worms from ro
! ten tree trunk in his pocket, and h
old rod the Judge built up the fir
, and Mrs. Mulock and Sarah cooke
some fitch, and secured the tin plat,
in the stream. Things went the usu
wav in such cases. The scientific isi
ermen came home dripping wet, an
, swearing that there was not the fin OF
J trout in the river, to find jerry placi
ly frying forty in pan. They ate the
I supper by the light of the roaring fir
a great horned owl hooting in u
! thicket Every man had hunting st
ry to tell. --Rcbcccd Harding DGUiS,
= Harper's MdgaSlIle.