IN THE CATSKILLS 



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 pscks 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 boulders 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 stair- 

 way, 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 

 transparent 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 



