Part 5 (1/2)

These two reat systehborhood of five thousand feet high, on the southern outposts of the great ate-posts of the pass into the south country This opening between them is called Hunter's Pass It is the most elevated and one of the wildest of the h In former years it is presuh; but latterly it is rare to find a guide who has been that way, and the tin-can and paper-collar tourists have not yet made it a runway

This seclusion is due not to any inherent difficulty of travel, but to the fact that it lies a little out of the way

We went through it last sureat slides on Dix, keeping along the ragged spurs of the in forest The pass is narroalled in on each side by precipices of granite, and blocked up with bowlders and fallen trees, and beset with pitfalls in the roads ingeniously covered with fair-see in one of these treacherous holes, and feels a cold sensation in his foot, he learns that he has dipped into the sources of the Boquet, which ees lower down into falls and rapids, and, recruited by creeping tributaries, goes brawling through the forest basin, and at last co stream in the valley of Elizabeth Town

From the summit another rivulet trickles away to the south, and finds its way through a frightful ta, to Mud Pond, a quiet body of water, with a ghastly fringe of dead trees, upon which people of grand intentions and weak vocabulary are trying to fix the name of Elk Lake The descent of the pass on that side is precipitous and exciting The way is in the strea ourselves down the faces of considerable falls, and tumbled down cascades The descent, however, was made easy by the fact that it rained, and every footstep was yielding and slippery Why sane people, often church-members respectably connected, will subject themselves to this sort of treat about a the bushes and dead wood until the s in shreds,--is one of the delightful mysteries of these woods I suspect that everyanimal, and likes, at intervals, to revert to the condition of the bear and the catah Hunter's Pass, which, as I have intimated, is the least frequented portion of this wilderness Yet ere surprised to find a well-beaten path a considerable portion of the way and wherever a path is possible It was not a mere deer's runway: these are found everywhere in the er anihway of beasts It bearsperiod, and probably a period long ago Large animals are not co fiercer than the tione by, Hunter's Pass was the highway of the whole caravan of ani backward; and forwards, in the ai way that beasts have, between Mud Pond and the Boquet Basin I think I can see now the procession of thehts of Dix and Nipple Top; the elk and the s; the heavy bear lounging by with his exploring nose; the frightened deer tre that snapped beneath his little hoofs, intent on the lily-pads of the pond; the raccoon and the hedgehog, sidling along; and the velvet-footed panther, insouciant and conscienceless, scenting the path with a curious glow in his eye, or crouching in an overhanging tree ready to drop into the procession at the rightby, watched by the red fox and the corinned at by the black cat,--the innocent, the vicious, the ti slanderer and the screa prowler, the industrious and the peaceful, the tree-top critic and the crawling biter,--just as it is elsewhere It makessociety is nearly extinct now: of the larger animals there only rehly than any person I know, and the deer, ould like to be friendly with entle ways are no protection froeness ofdestruction as the snarling catamount I have read in history that the amiable natives of Hispaniola fared no better at the hands of the brutal Spaniards than the fierce and warlike Caribs As society is at present constituted in Christian countries, I would rather for ar than a fawn

There is not much of ro travelers, nothing I do not know that the Keene Valley has any history Thenow in shallows and now in rippling reaches over the sands and pebbles, has for ages filled the air with continuous and soothing sounds Before the Vero, andwoods, I suppose the red Indian lived here in his usual discomfort, and was as restless as his successors, the summer boarders

But the streams were full of trout then, and the moose and the elk left their broad tracks on the sands of the river But of the Indian there is no trace There is a mound in the valley, much like a Tel in the country of Bashan beyond the Jordan, that may have been built by some pre-historic race, and ure of a preserved chieftain on his sloay to Paradise What the gentle and accoe region where the frost kills the early potatoes and stunts the scanty oats, I do not know I have seen no trace of theht relic, which cah to found the history of a race upon

So stone from the hillside on one of the little plateaus, for a house-cellar, discovered, partly eion With the unerring instinct of workh it, and broke the bowl into several pieces The joint fragive us the forht inches across, lazed The bottom is round, the top flares into four comers, and the rim is rudely but rather artistically ornamented with criss-cross scratches made when the clay was soft The vessel is made of clay not found about here, and it is one that the Indians forht here by roving Indians who may have made an expedition to the Ohio; was it passed fro to a race that occupied the country before the Indian, and who have left traces of their civilized skill in pottery scattered all over the continent?

If I could establish the fact that this jar was enerations in this lovely valley:-the aentle descendants were probably killed by the Spaniards in the West Indies); the Red Indians; the Keene Flaters (fro of the various races of animals who have been unable to live here since the advent of the Suh to sustain both This last incursion has been more destructive to the noble serenity of the forest than all the preceding

But we are wandering from Hunter's Pass The western walls of it are for nor so bare as the great slides of Dix which glisten in the sun like silver, but rough and repelling, and consequently alluring I have a great desire to scale theh sued for pleasure and not high enough for glory This desire was stiht in the Mud Pond cabin The guide had never been through the pass before; although he was faion, and had ascended Nipple Top in the winter in pursuit of the sable The story he told doesn't auides'

stories do, faithfully reported, and I should not have believed it if I had not had a good deal of leisure onmind, and I may say in rather of a starved condition as to any rouide said then--and he mentioned it casually, in reply to our inquiries about ascending thethe precipices on the southeast side of Nipple Top He scarcely volunteered the inforave us any particulars about it I always admire this art by which the acco the reluctant tale of the marvelous from him, and makes you in a manner responsible for its ied, the listener is always eager to believe a great dealto tell, and always resents the assumed reservations and doubts of the latter

There were strange reports about this cave when the old guide was a boy, and even then its very existence had becoendary nobody knew exactly where it was, but there was no doubt that it had been inhabited

Hunters in the forests south of Dix had seen a light late at night twinkling through the trees high up the -up of a furnace Settlers were few in the wilderness then, and all the inhabitants ell known If the cave was inhabited, it ers, and bythis seclusion and eluding observation If suspicious characters were seen about Port Henry, or if any such landed from the steamers on the shore of Lake Champlain, it was impossible to identify the seen did not, however, prevent the growth of the belief in their existence Little indications and rumors, each trivial in itself, became a mass of testimony that could not be disposed of because of its very indefiniteness, but which appealed strongly to ination, or credulity

The cave existed; and it was inhabited by men who came and went on ht What this band of adventurers or desperadoes lived on, how they conveyed their food through the trackless woods to their high eyrie, and what could induce men to seek such a retreat, were questions discussed, but never settled Theyto plunder in these savage wilds, and, in fact, robberies and raids either in the settlements of the hills or the distant lake shore were unknown In another age, these ht have been hermits, holy men who had retired from the world to feed the vanity of their Godliness in a spot where they were subject neither to interruption nor comparison; they would have had a shrine in the cave, and an i before it and sending out its e waste A more probable notion was that they were roether,--possibly princes, expectants of the throne, Bourbon res, so to speak, of kings, who had withdrawn out of observation to wait for the next turn-over in Paris Frenchht be honest-thieves or criminals, escaped from justice or from the friendly state-prison of New York This last supposition was, however, more violent than the others, or seeht-up New York criminal would be so insane as to run away from his political friends the keepers, from the easily had companionshi+p of his pals outside, and from the society of his criminal lawyer, and, in short, to put himself into the depths of a wilderness out of which escape, when escape was desired, is a good dealjails of the Empire State? Besides, how foolish for a man, if he were a really hardened and professional criular business, to run away froht have difficulty in finding hi of men--there is soave little evidence in their appearance of being escaped cris Their movements were mysterious but not necessarily violent If their occupation could have been discovered, that would have furnished a clew to their true character But about this the strangers were as close as ht fro

This gave rise to the opinion, which was strengthened by a good many indications equally conclusive, that the cave was the resort of a gang of coiners and counterfeiters Here they had their furnace, s-pots, and dies; here they manufactured those spurious quarters and halves that their confidants, ere pardoned, were circulating, and which a few honestto the counter”

This prosaic explanation of a romantic situation satisfies all the requireination at once rejects it as unworthy of the subject I think the guide put it forward in order to have it rejected The fact is,--at least, it has never been disproved,--these strangers whose ed to that dark and mysterious race whose presence anywhere on this continent is a nest-egg of romance or of terror They were Spaniards! You need not say buccaneers, you need not say gold-hunters, you need not say swarthy adventurers even: it is enough to say Spaniards! There is no tale ofI would not believe if a Spaniard is the hero of it, and it is not necessary either that he should have the high-sounding name of Bodadilla or Ojeda

nobody, I suppose, would doubt this story if the hts of red wine fro therant Havana After a day of toil, what more natural, and what more probable for a Spaniard?

Does the reader think these inferences not warranted by the facts? He does not know the facts It is true that our guide had never himself personally visited the cave, but he has always intended to hunt it up

His inforhty hunter and trapper In one of his expeditions over Nipple Top he chanced upon the cave The rowth He entered, not without soends whichinto such a place alone I confess that, before I went in, I should want to fire a Gatling gun into the mouth for a little while, in order to rout out the bears which usually dwell there He went in, however The entrance was low; but the cave was spacious, not large, but big enough, with a level floor and a vaulted ceiling It had long been deserted, but that it was once the residence of highly civilized beings there could be no doubt The dead brands in the centre were the remains of a fire that could not have been kindled by wild beasts, and the bones scattered about had been scientifically dissected and handled There were also rearments scattered about At the farther end, in a fissure of the rock, were stones regularly built up, the reer fire,--and what the hunter did not doubt was the s furnace of the Spaniards He poked about in the ashes, but found no silver That had all been carried away

But what most provoked his wonder in this rude cave was a chair I This was not such a seat as a woodh body and a seat of woven splits, but a manufactured chair of coance This chair itself was a ht have been accounted for, though I don't kno; but upon the back of the chair hung, as if the owner had carelessly flung it there before going out an hour before, a n make and peculiar style, but what endeared it to him was its row of et nohether he did not say they were of silver coin, and that the coin was Spanish But I am not certain about this latter fact, and I wish to cast no air of improbability over my narrative This rich vestment the hunter carried aith him This was all the plunder his expedition afforded

Yes: there was one other article, and, to o This was a short and stout crowbar of iron; not one of the long crowbars that farmers use to pry up stones, but a short handy one, such as you would use in digging silver-ore out of the cracks of rocks

This was the guide's simple story I asked him what became of the vest and the buttons, and the bar of iron The old man wore the vest until he wore it out; and then he handed it over to the boys, and they wore it in turn till they wore it out The buttons were cut off, and kept as curiosities They were about the cabin, and the children had the with the tiuessed it had disappeared I regretted that he had not treasured this slender verification of an interesting romance, but he said in those days he never paid s Lately he has turned the subject over, and is sorry that his father wore out the vest and did not bring away the chair It is his steady purpose to find the cave some time when he has leisure, and capture the chair, if it has not tuht The guide has the bar at his house in Keene Valley, and has always used it

I a that next day I saw the crowbar, and had it inkind of crowbar This evidence is enough for me I intend in the course of this vacation to search for the cave; and, if I find it, my readers shall know the truth about it, if it destroys the only bit of romance connected with these mountains

VIII WHAT SOME PEOPLE CALL PLEASURE

My readers were promised an account of Spaniard's Cave on Nipple-Top Mountain in the Adirondacks, if such a cave exists, and could be found

There is none but negative evidence that this is a ination, the void fancy of a vacant hour; but it is the duty of the historian to present the negative testimony of a fruitless expedition in search of it, uage befitting all sincere exploits of a geographical character

The summit of Nipple-Top Mountain has been trodden by fehite ood character: it is in the heart of a hirsute wilderness; it is itself a rough and unsocial pile of granite nearly five thousand feet high, bristling with a stunted and unpleasant growth of firs and balsao there Therefore ent In the party of three there was, of course, a chaplain The guide was Old Mountain Phelps, who had made the ascent once before, but not from the northwest side, the direction from which we approached it The enthusiasroith his years, and outlived his endurance: we carried our own knapsacks and supplies, therefore, and drew upon hie of the wilderness Our first day's route was through the Gill-brook woods and up one of its branches to the head of Caribou Pass, which separates Nipple Top from Colvin