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THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 287 
throughout the mountains. All this region was noted 
for big game until very recent years. But now the 
lumbermen, before whose advance all life perishes, 
have found their way even into the coves of the 
Forks of the Pigeon. 
The road up the East Fork, closely following, con- 
stantly crossing and recrossing the river, is, like the 
way up the West Fork, delightful on a summer day. 
Each ford is a picture, no matter how the crossing 
of it may affect your feelings. From Cruso, near the 
end of the road, the trail to the top of Cold Mountain 
is a trail up into the sky, where tall forest trees 
gradually lower their heads and finally disappear to 
be replaced by small firs and great gardens of the red- 
flowering Rhododendron Catawbiense, the glorious 
shrub that so loves to blossom high up under the 
dome of the sky. The trail leads at first up Cold 
Creek, under the chestnuts, oaks, locusts, and tulip 
trees; then under rocky ledges and along such nar- 
row crests that you look down on either hand into 
deep-lying coves filled with trees and wonderful in 
their intensity of lights and shades. The sun smites 
hot as it strikes you on one side, while a cold north 
wind strikes you on the other side. 
The walk up this trail was made forever memor- 
able by the fear your guide entertained of snakes. 
He was accompanied by his little son whom he 
constantly cautioned to be careful. Neither himself 
nor any of his friends or neighbors had been "snake- 
bit," yet every step of the way through the laurel 
was beset with unseen dangers, and from every ledge, 
