The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-09-03

help, he was found perfectly helpless
under those trees. He was trying to
crawl along underneath, and some of
those tough, spiny branches had caught
his pack, and he could go neither way
In the midst of that thicket arose mass
of rock, whose wind-swept top was per-
fectly bare. In the advance, as usual, the
Hunter had climbed its steep sides,
when he found himself confronted by
the king of all the hedgehogs. Without
a moments hesitation the monster
charged upon the intruder. SO escape
down the rock seemed impossible, if the
Hunter had ever known such word as
retreat. Quickly drawing his revolver,
he fired in succession four of its five
chambers at the advancing foe. The
bullets merely cut off a few quilts on one
side and the other, as they glanced from
the armor of the savage beast, and still
he rushed on to the attack. One ball
only remained. Reinforcements were
coming, but they would be too late. 1t
was critical moment, but the Hunter
was equal to the emergency. Calmly
STOPPING down, he waited till the muzzle
of his pistol almost touched the narrow
space between those fiery eyes, pulled
the trigger, and blew the animal off the
rock into the ravine below. If there
had been any" welkin" there, how it
would have rung with our shouts of
victoryl
Against a ledge of rocks, near the
beautiful little Lake of the Clouds, we
made our camp for the night in as
wild and as beautiful place as New
England can afford. We slept as tired
travellers on beds of fragrant fir, with
pillows of ferns, know how to sleep.
We saw such a sunset and such sun
rise as only those who have spent
bright, clear night on Mount Mansfield
have ever seen. And they are but few
and favored mortals, for the bright,
clear days and nights are but few in a
year there.
Down little ravine we went in the
morning, aiming for Smuggler's Notch.
We hereby warn every one never to at
tempt to follow our footsteps. AT least
one hairbreadth escape was credited to
each of us. We slid down frightful
precipices; we jumped over awful
oh trin ia har
sometimes, but more than once only a
friendly rock saved the foremost from
the fearful avalanches started behind
him. Battered and torn and bruised
we were when at last we came in sight
of the wing of the old Notch house.
How soft the ground seemed as we lay
down there around our fire. The States
man thought hemlock slab was equal
to his usual cushioned armchair And
never was coffee so good as that, and
those trout, that by and by came along
to help us, and soon were fried on
tin plate, or broiled on a forked stick!
Those potatoes, roasted under the fire!
And even the applep pie mush! Enough
said," as the old Roman used to say,
when he could not think of any more
compound adiectives and irregular
verbs.
The two days at Smuggler's Notch
were simply and utterly incompre-
hensible ones for ordinary mortals.
Mr.. Editor, did you ever 90 to Snug
gler's Notch? If not, don't pretend
you know anything about our glorious
Vermont. Its geological Characters
tics knock about the theories of the
professors as the Bostons do the base
balls. Its cliffs and ravines, Pringe
thinks (and he knows if any one does),
yet hide undiscovered forms of New
England vegetable life, as well as many
known species not found in two other
localities. Its magnificent spring,
bursting out of the mountain-side, sends
the mercury down lower than any other
in Vermont, except the Frozen
WE'LL" but it does not freeze all the
trout.
1t is not an ordinary mountain notch
where the Professors anti-aboriginal
river of ice has worn its way through
the rocky ridge. 1t is the place where
some Titan's battle-aXe has cut down a
path through the solid ledge, leaving
the last of the chips (some of them
larger than houses) just where they
happened to fall. With the help of a
lumberman whom we found in the
woods we guessed at the location of
the Halfway house on the Stowe road.
BY pocket compass we aimed at it
through the woods and came out within
twenty rods of it. Then over the
mountain and home.
We found twenty-four of the twenty.
six plants on our list. Can any botan-
ist tell us of more successful eXcur.
sion? Among them were such gems OF
the Vermont flora as the three noun
tain saXlfrages, pinquicula vulgaris
astragalus alpinus, hedysarum boriale
castilleia pallida, asplenium viride
wodsia glabella and wodsia hyper,
borea. The little aspidium fragrars
and the diapensia lapponica escaped us
for this time. j. A. BATES.