vering oval leaves were
the leaves of the walnut. It was assurance that the soil was rich. And
through the length of the valley, twisted irregularly, lay a wide ribbon
of saffron cane, from which at times the silver surface of a stream
showed--a further evidence of the soil's fertility. Over the western
edge of this tableland of green and yellow and silver the mountains cast
a shadow of purple and the sun filtered slanting rays through the forest
slopes on the north and east.

Down the mountainside he came, and into the valley; never to leave it,
except when in bartering with the Indians he went to their
camping-places for furs, or in the years of prosperity that followed he
was upon a trading mission.

He first made his way through "Walnut Grove" in search of the caned
banks of the river. As he pushed through the reeds that swayed above him
he came suddenly upon a well-beaten path. In its dust were the prints of
deer-hoofs, and he followed them. The path threaded the length of the
valley beside the river's winding course, but he knew from the crests of
the mountains above him the direction he was taking.

It led him to the base of one of these mountains, to a spring which
flowed clear and cool, a brook in size, from a low rock-ribbed cave.

By the spring he cooked his meal. His bread was baked upon a hot stone
and he drank water from a terrapin shell. As he ate his meal there came
the sound of breaking cane, a familiar welcomed vibration to a hunter. A
stone, that is still by the spring side, was used as a shelter and a
resting-place for the rifle, and a deer fell as it stopped, astonished
at the curling smoke that rose from its watering-place.

This was the first meal of the white man at the York spring or in the
"Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf," and for more than fifty years
the hunter lived within a hundred yards of where he camped that day. He
was Conrad Pile--or "Old Coonrod," as he is known, the descriptive
adjectives and byname ever coupled as though one word. He was the
great-great-grandfather of Sergeant Alvin Cullom York, and the earliest
ancestor of which he has account.

Above the spring in the rock-facing of the cliff is a large cave. Here
Coonrod Pile spread a bed of leaves and made his home. The camp-fire was
kept burning and its smoke was seen by other hunters, and Pearson
Miller, Arthur Frogge, John Riley and Moses Poor came to Coonrod in the
valley, and they too made their homes there, an