MOUNT MITCHELL 311 
hunts, and to show you the heavy, old-fashioned 
rifle he prized above all modern inventions. But 
best of all the old man loved to tell of how they went 
in search of Dr. Mitchell and found him looking as 
natural as life in the pure water of the mountain 
pool. So strong an impression has this brave and 
gentle old hunter made upon his community that the 
spot where his little house stands in the Cane River 
Valley is marked on the government map — "Big 
Tom Wilson's." 
The extreme top of Mount Mitchell is bare of 
trees excepting a few stunted firs; but yellow St. 
Johnswort blooms in cheerful profusion over the 
rocks that are daintily fringed with saxifrage and 
sedum, a few twisted rose-bays show traces of earlier 
bloom, and prickly gooseberry bushes are maturing 
fruit for the birds, while sounds in the leaves and a 
flutter of wings betray the presence of a flock of j un- 
cos. On all sides the dark fir-clad slopes descend into 
the shadows below, where streams rush through ra- 
vines choked full of rhododendrons, and mossy 
slopes are impenetrable with laurel. Below the firs 
glorious hardwood trees cover the mountain-sides, 
the ravines, and the valleys, their intermingling hues 
of green blended and lost in tremendous depths of 
blue or purple spaces. 
The view from the summit, off over the ocean of 
land that rolls in stormy waves to the far horizon, is 
stupendous. Beyond the impressive and dark 
masses of the near heights, the great mountains of 
the region, from the Grandfather to the Smokies, 
