236 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
Jonathan Creek crosses and recrosses the road. You 
go on and up the mountain-side where the forest is 
stately, still, and ancient, and where underneath the 
trees, on all sides as far as one can see, a bed of dewy 
ferns covers the earth, the green fronds nested in 
shadows. 
The road ascends through the ferns and you notice 
that Jonathan Creek has become a little rippling 
brook, a new-born child of the forest and the clouds. 
When you get to the gap of the mountains you find 
in the "old field" there, a large cold spring, the 
cradle out of which Jonathan Creek leaps to go 
dancing down the mountain-side, and away to the 
turbid plains below. 
At the gap you see Soco Fall and hear it thunder 
down the lonely cliff. It is the wild beginning of Soco 
Creek that dashes down the other side of the moun- 
tain, and the road following down the gorge soon 
presents such an appearance that you adopt the 
Indian mode of progression, leaving the driver to 
survive or perish as fate ordains. To cross an In- 
dian's conception of a footbridge over the torrent 
dashing uproariously against the boulders that 
strew its course is only one degree better than trying 
to cross the washed-out fords in a carriage. Yet 
nothing can dim your pleasure in the splendid fresh- 
ness and mystery of the shadowy gorge where the 
water shouts in a thousand voices, for you are in the 
Indian Country where nature seems a little wilder 
and more secret. The writhing limbs and deep-green 
foliage of monster rhododendrons crowd the banks. 
