HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 49 



pour of bigger and lesser rills upon the sleepers 

 beneath. Said sleepers, as one man, sprang 

 up, each taking his blanket with him; but by 

 the time some of the party had got themselves 

 stowed away under the adjacent rock, the rain 

 ceased. It was little more than the dissolving 

 of the night-cap of fog which so often hangs 

 about these heights. With the first appear- 

 ance of the dawn I had heard the new thrush 

 in the scattered trees near the hut — a strain 

 as fine as if blown upon a fairy flute, a sup- 

 pressed musical whisper from out the tops of 

 the dark spruces. Probably never did there go 

 up from the top of a great mountain a smaller 

 song to greet the day, albeit it was of the pur- 

 est harmony. It seemed to have in a more 

 marked degree the quality of interior reverbera- 

 tion than any other thrush song I had ever 

 heard. Would the altitude or the situation 

 account for its minor key? Loudness would 

 avail little in such a place. Sounds are not far 

 heard on a mountain-top; they are lost in the 

 abyss of vacant air. But amid these low, 

 dense, dark spruces, which make a sort of cano- 

 pied privacy of every square rod of ground, 

 what could be more in keeping than this deli- 

 cate musical whisper? It was but the soft 

 hum of the balsams, interpreted and embodied 

 in a bird's voice. 



It was the plan of two of our companions to 

 go from Slide over into the head of the lion- 

 dout, and thence out to the railroad at the little 

 village of Shokan, an unknown way to them, 



