wl," said he
after a moment; "let us help the legend along by believing it was the
voice of the lost maiden."

"By the way," continued he, "do you remember the pretty creature we saw
seven years ago in the shanty on the West Branch, who was really
helping her mother cook for the hands, a slip of a girl twelve or
thirteen years old, with eyes as beautiful and bewitching as the waters
that flowed by her cabin? I was wrapped in admiration till she spoke;
then how the spell was broken! Such a voice! It was like the sound of
pots and pans when you expected to hear a lute."

The next day we bade farewell to the Rondout, and set out to cross the
mountain to the east branch of the Neversink.

"We shall find tame waters compared with these, I fear,--a shriveled
stream brawling along over loose stones, with few pools or deep
places."

Our course was along the trail of the bark-men who had pursued the
doomed hemlock to the last tree at the head of the valley. As we passed
along, a red steer stepped out of the bushes into the road ahead of us,
where the sunshine fell full upon him, and, with a half-scared,
beautiful look, begged alms of salt. We passed the Haunted Shanty; but
both it and the legend about it looked very tame at ten o'clock in the
morning. After the road had faded out, we took to the bed of the stream
to avoid the gauntlet of the underbrush, skipping up the mountain from
boulder to boulder. Up and up we went, with frequent pauses and copious
quaffing of the cold water. My soldier declared a "haunted valley"
would be a godsend; anything but endless dragging of one's self up such
an Alpine stairway. The winter wren, common all through the woods,
peeped and scolded at us as we sat blowing near the summit, and the
oven-bird, not quite sure as to what manner of creatures we were,
hopped down a limb to within a few feet of us and had a good look,
then darted off into the woods to tell the news. I also noted the
Canada warbler, the chestnut-sided warbler, and the black-throated
blue-back,--the latter most abundant of all. Up these mountain
brooks, too, goes the belted kingfisher, swooping around through the
woods when he spies the fisherman, then wheeling into the open space
of the stream and literally making a "blue streak" down under the
branches.

At last the stream which had been our guide was lost under the rocks,
and before long the top was gained. These mountains are horse-shaped.
There is always a broad, smoo