mong the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were
inthralled with an unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit
guarded that inestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a
dark mist from the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain
search for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went up
the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. On this
theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral.

The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions
of the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of the haunted
region. The habits and sentiments of that departed people were too
distinct from those of their successors to find much real sympathy. It
has often been a matter of regret to me that I was shut out from the
most peculiar field of American fiction by an inability to see any
romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian character, at
least till such traits were pointed out by others. I do abhor an Indian
story. Yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place in our
literature than the biographer of the Indian chiefs. His subject, as
referring to tribes which have mostly vanished from the earth, gives
him a right to be placed on a classic shelf, apart from the merits which
will sustain him there.

I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our
mineralogist had found the three 'Silver Hills' which an Indian sachem
sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the treasure of
which the posterity of the purchaser have been looking for ever since.
But the man of science had ransacked every hill along the Saco, and knew
nothing of these prodigious piles of wealth. By this time, as usual with
men on the eve of great adventure, we had prolonged our session deep
into the night, considering how early we were to set out on our six
miles' ride to the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a general
breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, and saw but
little probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly bliss, in the
first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of three, to climb
above the clouds; nor when I felt how sharp the wind was as it rushed
through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of my unplastered
chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part, though we were
to seek for the 'Great Carbuncle.'

End of Project Gutenberg's The Gr