for miles by day, its dusky crimson glowing among the
ledges at night. The red men said that it hung in the air, and that the
soul of an Indian--killed, that he might guard the spot--made approach
perilous to men of all complexions and purposes. As late as Ethan
Crawford's time one search band took a "good man" to lay the watcher,
when they strove to scale the height, but they returned "sorely bruised,
treasureless, and not even saw that wonderful sight." The value of the
stone tempted many, but those who sought it had to toil through a dense
forest, and on arriving at the mountain found its glories eclipsed by
intervening abutments, nor could they get near it. Rocks covered with
crystals, at first thought to be diamonds, were readily despoiled of
their treasure, but the Great Carbuncle burned on, two thousand feet
above them, at the head of the awful chasm of Oakes Gulf, and baffled
seekers likened it to the glare of an evil eye.

There was one who had grown old in searching for this gem, often
scrambling over the range in wind and snow and cloud, and at last he
reached a precipitous spot he had never attained before. Great was his
joy, for the Carbuncle was within his reach, blazing into his eyes in the
noon sunlight as if it held, crystallized in its depths, the brightness
of all the wine that had ever gladdened the tired hearts of men. There
were rivals in the search, and on reaching the plateau they looked up and
saw him kneeling on a narrow ledge with arms extended as in rapture. They
called to him. He answered not. He was dead--dead of joy and triumph.
While they looked a portion of the crag above him fell away and rolled
from rock to rock, marking its course with flashes of bloody fire, until
it reached the Lake of the Clouds, and the waters of that tarn drowned
its glory. Yet those waters are not always black, and sometimes the
hooked crest of Mount Monroe is outlined against the night sky in a ruddy
glow.

SKINNER'S CAVE

The abhorrence to paying taxes and duties--or any other levy from which
an immediate and personal good is not promised--is too deeply rooted in
human nature to be affected by statutes, and whenever it is possible to
buy commodities that have escaped the observation of the revenue officers
many are tempted to do so for the mere pleasure of defying the law. In
the early part of this century the northern farmers and their wives were,
in a way, providing themselves with laces, silver-ware