358 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
but you go on along a woodsy by-road whose banks 
are covered with pale-green ferns, and where the 
large spiraea in snowy bloom stands so close as almost 
to form a hedge. The velvety dark-green leaves of 
wild hydrangea crowd everywhere, its broad flat 
heads of showy buds just ready to open. Enormous 
wild gooseberries invite you to taste and impishly 
prick your tongue if you do. The blackberries make 
a great show, but are not yet ripe. The roadside 
now and then is bordered with ripe strawberries. 
This shady way brings you again into the "main 
leadin' road" you left some distance back when you 
climbed the sorrel-red hill to the top of Flat Top 
Mountain, and which now also has its wealth of 
flowers, among which the pure-white tapers of the 
galax shine out from the woods, while here and there 
a service tree drops coral berries at your feet. 
Soon now you cross the deep, wide ford of Mill 
River on a footbridge, substantial and with a hand- 
rail, and where you stop of course to look both up 
and down the stream overhung with foliage, and just 
beyond which is a pretty house with its front yard 
full of roses. It is only two miles from here to Boone, 
and you breathe a sigh of regret at being so near the 
end of the day's walk; yet when you find yourself 
in Mrs. Coffey's little inn with its bright flowers you 
are glad to sit down and think over the events of the 
day. 
Boone, at the foot of Howard Knob, is a pretty 
snuggle of houses running along a single street. 
Boone says it is the highest county seat in the 
