THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 



own doorstep a week afterward, the wounds were 

 nearly healed and the rents all mended. 



When one is on a mountain-top, he spends most 

 of the time in looking at the show he has been at 

 such pains to see. About every hour we would as- 

 cend the rude lookout to take a fresh observation. 

 With a glass I could see my native hills forty miles 

 away to the northwest. I was now upon the back 

 of the horse, yea, upon the highest point of his 

 shoulders, which had so many times attracted my 

 attention as a boy. We could look along his balsam- 

 covered back to his rump, from which the eye 

 glanced away down into the forests of the Never- 

 sink, and on the other hand plump down into the 

 gulf where his head was grazing or drinking. Dur- 

 ing the day there was a grand procession of thunder- 

 clouds filing along over the northern Catskills, and 

 letting down veils of rain and enveloping them. 

 From such an elevation one has the same view 

 of the clouds that he does from the prairie or the 

 ocean. They do not seem to rest across and to be 

 upborne by the hills, but they emerge out of the 

 dim west, thin and vague, and grow and stand up 

 as they get nearer and roll by him, on a level 

 but invisible highway, huge chariots of wind and 

 storm. 



In the afternoon a thick cloud threatened us, but 

 it proved to be the condensation of vapor that an- 

 nounces a cold wave. There was soon a marked fall 

 175 



