THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 369 
moonlight, or dimly looming in the faint light of the 
stars, or shrouded in white mists like a ghost. One 
sleeps soundly in the keen, thin air and at daybreak 
wakens, not slowly but all at once with a sense of 
buoyancy in every member. How the cold spring 
water stings the skin and makes it glow suddenly 
hot ! And as we step out of doors we see the moun- 
tain emerging from its robe of white mists, its colors 
fresh and fine as though it, too, had slept well. 
Oftener than anywhere else we go up on the moun- 
tain. One can easily, by jumping from stone to stone, 
cross the Watauga's pretty rippling water, where 
the trout hide. Some of our little party may stop to 
fish, and that is good for those of us who come home 
hungry at night — and how hungry we do come 
home ! — but the Watauga has better uses than fish- 
ing, an occupation apt to absorb one's attention too 
closely, withdrawing it from matters more import- 
ant than trout. There is a matter of real interest, 
however, connected with fishing in this region. For 
it was either here or in the Linville that we saw the 
sacred piscatorial art pursued with woolen mittens 
instead of rod and fly. Thus equipped you wade in 
and grab the fish where they lie in the clear pools. 
The path beyond the river is cut through the dense 
kalmia and Rhododendron maximum that make a 
wide band along the base of the mountain, then it 
leads up and up and up through the more open 
forest. There is no sweeter walk in the world than 
that up Grandfather Mountain, where the path 
winds among the trees, a canopy of leaves screening 
