150 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



doubt we should find good browsing on Peakamoose, 

 and trout enough in the streams at its base." 



So without further ado we made ready, and in 

 due time found ourselves, with our packs on our 

 backs, entering upon a pass in the mountains that 

 led to the valley of the Rondout. 



The scenery was wild and desolate in the extreme, 

 the mountains on either hand looking as if they had 

 been swept by a tornado of stone. Stone avalanches 

 hung suspended on their sides, or had shot down into 

 the chasm below. It was a kind of Alpine scenery 

 where crushed and broken bowlders covered the earth 

 instead of snow. 



In the depressions in the mountains the rocky 

 fragments seemed to have accumulated, and to have 

 formed what might be called stone glaciers that were 

 creeping slowly down. 



Two hours' march brought us into heavy timber 

 where the stone cataclysm had not reached, and be- 

 fore long the soft voice of the Rondout was heard in 

 the gulf below us. We paused at a spring run, and 

 I followed it a few yards down its mountain stairway, 

 carpeted with black moss, and had my first glimpse 

 of the unknown stream. I stood upon rocks and 

 looked many feet down into a still, sunlit pool and 

 saw the trout disporting themselves in the transpar- 

 ent water, and I was ready to encamp at once; but 

 my companion, who had not been tempted by the 

 view, insisted upon holding to our original purpose, 

 which was to go farther up the stream. We passed 

 a clearing with three or four houses and a saw-mill. 



