Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1880-08-04
In the Mountain Wilderness of Virginia.

The journey occupied a day and a
half. They rode Indian file along a
trail which only Jerry's eyes could fol-
low; it crossed heaps of rocks, swamps,
fallen trees it led through an unbrok-
en- forest of gigantic pines, oaks, birch,
ash, and sugar-maples; even the nut
trees and black cherry had a time here
to reach the height of a hundred and
fifty feet. Evergreen deciduous trees
grew alike leafeless and branchless side
by side, spreading palm-like at the top.
The journey was, in fact, passage
through interminable aisles of huge
black pillars under a fiat, leafy roof.
The sides of the creeks were banked
with flaming color; laurel and rhod-
odendrous neaped up walls of dark
green scarlet, and creamy white; in
the sunshine late azaleas lifted wands
of shell-like rose. Sometimes the
horses literally broke the path for miles
through waving forests Of fern, whose
delicate leaves, Sarah fancied, touched
her hand, as she passed, with a shy
caress. The girls life was full. Her
ife had before now been filed up with
sewing and sweeping, and the petty
matters of little village. 1t was the
first time that she had looked upon the
great solitary face of nature. 1t SEEM
ed 10 her that the sky and water and
trees knew that it was the first time,
and were glad that she had come, and
whispered to her, as did her old home
to Mignon, "Poor childl where hast
thou staid SO long?"
There was no sign that man had ever
passed this way before. Huge trees,
fallen a century before, lay in gigantic
round burrows on the ground; burrows
OF deep moss, of fretted and fluted
lichen, gray and golden, bronze and
purple, and of trailing myriads ofpink
oxalis. 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
ou illC w III Inv
a puh-ball into a cloud of red dust. Ii
was 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 multitudinous 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 nnawares.
Even jaunty, selfsufficient Mrs. Mulock
felt like an intruder, and rode apart
and quietly. The Judge led Sarah's
horse, which could not keep its footing.
Sometimes he pointed with bright,
pleased eyes, to a stately tree or 4 bed
of feathery moss, but he said nothing.
and never called on her to admire them.
Mr.. Morley rode up once, and said, in
grave and patronizing manner, that
he must acknowledge that there was a
quality of freshness and newborn
strength in this unexplored wilderness
which any scene must lose after it had
been trampled over by innumerable
tourists. Miss Davidger assented civily,
but pushed on. Human voices were
an impertinence in the great and word
less meanings Cf the woods.
Monstrous fungous growths reared
themselves on every side as 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 on
newly barked trees, and more than
once the three-lobed, clawless track of
a panther in the wet black mould.
The thickets of laurel and scrub oak on
the banks of the rivers give TO these
beasts and to wolves an imperious shell
ter; they have the best chance there,
too, of catching the deer as they come
down TO water. Browning pointed out
dark green shrub. which he said was
''elk browse" and chad been made by
the Good Man to grow just that high
to reach the muzzles of the young
elks." No elks had been seen in this
REGION for fifty years, thong some might
yet be hiding back in Canaan.
The party camped the second night
on the bank of the Blackwater, a stream
which empties into the Cheat, making
huts of beach bark, and beds of hem
lock boughs set Oh end to give an elias
tic spring. The Doctor and Morley
set out with their best white flies, reels
and lines TO catch trout for supper in
the cOffee-colOred gloomy creek.
Browning took a few worms from a
rotten tree trunk in his pocket, and
his old rod; the Judge built up the fire,
and Mrs. Mulock and Sarah cooked
some fitch, and secured the tim plates
in the stream. Things went the usual
way in such cases. The scientific fish,
erman came home dripping wet, and
swearing that there was not the FIN of
a trout in the river, to find jerry
placidly frying forty in a pan. They
ate their supper by the light of the
roaring fire, great horned owl hoot-
ing In the thicket. Every man had
hunting story.
A Romance from far Alaska.
A young man who was in Alaska
some four years ago fell In love with