Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/156

150 blossoms, and each of us decorated his horse's head as a sure remedy against the tormenting flies.

I never think of this fence and its old gate through which we passed, with the narrow trail starting abruptly up the steep slope of the wooded mountain side, without vaguely picturing the wicket-gate through which Christian went at the outset of his journey. If ever there was a land of promise surely it must be at the farther end of that toilsome trail with glimpses of the Delectable Mountains here and there on the more open stretches of its upper levels.

For long the beasts scrambled upwards, stopping to breathe where the steepness was broken by some irregularity. We held on bravely to the manes, leaning well forward, and pressed our legs close as we scraped by the trees that beset the trail. It was a long ridge that the trail followed, the land on either side falling away quite sharply. Higher up the woods became more open, with little undergrowth and long vistas among the trees. The bloom-covered bushes of the flaming azalea (Azalea lutea) were scattered far and near, glowing spots of color in the sunlit spaces of the woods, and the crisp leaves of the galax (Galax aphylla), shining bronze and green, spread in thick patches along the way. The woods on this midway portion of the mountain were for the greater part made up of oak and chestnut. Lower down, near the foot of the mountain and in the deep, moist coves between the ridges, the tree life was more varied and the primeval forest more luxuriant and jungle-like in character. There the buckeye (Æsculus) and the tulip tree (Liriodendron)—the yellow poplar of the lumbermen—grew to truly magnificent proportions, and many other Carolinian forms prevailed.

In the dry, open woods on Huckleberry Knob, a wild turkey suddenly started up before us and ran swiftly down the slope. It was a bit of the primitive wilderness life and gave a fine touch to our adventure. Huckleberry Knob is one of the three Balsam peaks that we had so often gazed at from the town; the lower one of the two that appeared close together. It was, in reality, but a hump on the southern shoulder of the main Balsam, the summit of which we now for the first time in our ascent caught a glimpse of through an opening in the woods, towering far away to the right—a stark peak with a bristling mane of fir forest. We were still among the oaks and chestnuts on Huckleberry Knob, some distance below the fir zone, but even at this altitude the air had a cool, autumnal snap and I was glad to have a thick jacket which had been uncomfortably warm in the valley. The hardest part of the climb was over, so White told us, and the horses had a comparatively easy time following the trail, which now led for some distance along the upper edge of a steep slope. The soil was a rich black mold of considerable depth that made a precarious footing, especially on the