A PILGRIMAGE TO THE "WHITE" 337 



put spurs to their horses and the " Johnnies " started 

 for safer quarters — how they came flying past the 

 Grecian columns of the great hotel with the Yanks 

 close at their heels — how they plunged through Dry 

 Creek, up hill and down dale, and over the Alleghany 

 Mountains to Old Sweet Springs, a ride of about 

 twenty miles, before the pursuit and flight were over. 

 And then the Major will probably wind up his yarn 

 with " My command was safe and not a man lost I " 



The Major's tales are always full of powder. 



Eleven miles from the " White," is Lewisburg, 

 W. Va., the county town of Greenbrier County. To 

 reach it a high mountain has to be overcome, or over- 

 gone, on the higher points of which is a stretch of 

 utterly worthless land. The soil, what little there is, 

 is red, stony and incapable of producing anything 

 better than an occasional thistle or a stunted, sickly, 

 pine shrub. One hot day an old-time stage-coach was 

 toiling slowly up the long hill, with its load of pas- 

 sengers who were making merry over the " pore land." 

 One of them ventured the remark : " The man who 



owns that land must be a d d fool." Thereupon 



a long, lanky West Virginian rose up and confronting 

 the speaker in an angry and defiant manner said, " I 



own that land, but I'm not such a d d fool as you 



take me for — I only own half on it." 



Coming down from a horseback ride on Kate Moun- 

 tain, one of West Virginia's giant hills, my son said 



