INTRODUCTION. xXxXV 
laid up for weeks, and the old doctor shook his cane and 
threatened what he would do if ever we frightened An- 
nie again—all of which we knew was talk, for the doctor 
loved us too well to harm a hair on our young heads. It 
was rude, wild sport, and my mind goes back lovingly 
on a hot August day to the Bear Meadows, Galbraith’s 
Gap, Snowshoe, Pleasant Gap, and the big mountains 
with their coats of pine. 
There are no prettier spots on earth than those near 
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, where I was born. Accustomed 
from infancy to look upon these wild mountains and 
grand old woods, they became common in my eyes, and, 
as naturally might be expected, were not appreciated. 
Much as I loved the trees and mountains, I never fully 
realized what beautiful things they were until after I 
came to the plains. For days and days I travelled over 
the level, arid, treeless prairie, often looking back at night 
to the place where we had started out in the morning, 
and which seemed scarcely ten miles distant, but was in 
reality over thirty. Every traveller has experienced the 
wonderfully deceptive distances of the plains. Often 
you would wager you could ride or walk to some dis- 
tant mountain in a few hours, but you journey on for 
days and days, and still its barren sides and bald peaks 
loom up apparently as far off as when you started out. 
To the man who has been raised in the mountains the 
absence of trees on vast level fiats becomes most pain- 
ful, and his eyes are constantly unconsciously seeking 
for a rock, a vine, a tree, a green mountain, or a shady 
glen where he can lie down and rest. Land; land every- 
where, and the sky shut down in great circles upon the 
level, burning plain. I never could get used to stretch- 
ing my little piece of canvas to make a shade ; it seemed 
