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 ! " 



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 



