Page:A-Hunting of Deer-1906.djvu/71

Rh If I could establish the fact that this jar was made by a prehistoric race, we should then have four generations in this lovely valley: the amiable Prehistoric people (whose gentle descendants were probably 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 here since the advent of the Summer Boarders, the valley being not productive enough to sustain both. This last incursion has been more destructive to the noble serenity of the forest than all the preceding.

But we are wandering from Hunter&rsquo;s Pass. The western walls of it are formed by the precipices of Nipple Top, not so striking nor so bare as the great slides of Dix, which glisten in the sun like silver, but rough and repelling, and consequently alluring, I have a great desire to scale them. I have always had an unreasonable wish to explore 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, the winter in pursuit of the sable. The story he told does n&rsquo;t amount to much,&mdash;none of the guides&rsquo; stories do, faithfully reported,&mdash;and I should not have believed it if I had not had a good deal of leisure on my hands at the time, and been of a willing mind, and I may say in rather a starved condition as to any romance in this region.

The guide said then&mdash;and he mentioned it casually, in reply to our inquiries about ascending the