rted cabins and camps, and some places
that might once have been called settlements: Elk Garden, where the
pioneers of the last four years had been wont to lay in a simple supply
of seed corn and Irish potatoes; and the spot where Henderson and his
company had camped on the way to establish Boonesboro two years before.
And at last we struck the trace that mounted upward to the Gateway
itself.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE WILDERNESS TRAIL

And now we had our hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what was
behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it.
Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence
did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange
aptness a quaint saying of my father's that Kaintuckee was the Garden of
Eden, and that men were being justly punished with blood for their
presumption.

As if to crown that judgment, the day was dark and lowering, with showers
of rain from time to time. And when we spoke,--Polly Ann and I,--it was
in whispers. The trace was very narrow, with Daniel Boone's blazes, two
years old, upon the trees; but the way was not over steep. Cumberland
Mountain was as silent and deserted as when the first man had known it.

Alas, for the vanity of human presage! We gained the top, and entered
unmolested. No Eden suddenly dazzled our eye, no splendor burst upon it.
Nothing told us, as we halted in our weariness, that we had reached the
Promised Land. The mists weighed heavily on the evergreens of the slopes
and hid the ridges, and we passed that night in cold discomfort. It was
the first of many without a fire.

The next day brought us to the Cumberland, tawny and swollen from the
rains, and here we had to stop to fell trees to make a raft on which to
ferry over our packs. We bound the logs together with grapevines, and as
we worked my imagination painted for me many a red face peering from the
bushes on the farther shore. And when we got into the river and were
caught and spun by the hurrying stream, I hearkened for a shot from the
farther bank. While Polly Ann and I were scrambling to get the raft
landed, Tom and Weldon swam over with the horses. And so we lay the
second night dolefully in the rain. But not so much as a whimper escaped
from Polly Ann. I have often told her since that the sorest trial she
had was the guard she kept on her tongue,--a hardship indeed for one of
Irish inheritance. Many a pull had she light