a mountain, and a lake, and a
little river.

The mountain stands in the heart of the Adirondack country, just near
enough to the thoroughfare of travel for thousands of people to see it
every year, and just far enough from the beaten track to be unvisited
except by a very few of the wise ones, who love to turn aside. Behind
the mountain is the lake, which no lazy man has ever seen. Out of the
lake flows the stream, winding down a long, untrodden forest valley, to
join the Stony Creek waters and empty into the Raquette River.

Which of the three Ampersands has the prior claim to the name, I cannot
tell. Philosophically speaking, the mountain ought to be regarded as the
head of the family, because it was undoubtedly there before the others.
And the lake was probably the next on the ground, because the stream
is its child. But man is not strictly just in his nomenclature; and I
conjecture that the little river, the last-born of the three, was the
first to be christened Ampersand, and then gave its name to its parent
and grand-parent. It is such a crooked stream, so bent and curved and
twisted upon itself, so fond of turning around unexpected corners and
sweeping away in great circles from its direct course, that its first
explorers christened it after the eccentric supernumerary of the
alphabet which appears in the old spelling-books as &-- and per se, and.

But in spite of this apparent subordination to the stream in the matter
of a name, the mountain clearly asserts its natural authority. It stands
up boldly; and not only its own lake, but at least three others, the
Lower Saranac, Round Lake, and Lonesome Pond, lie at its foot and
acknowledge its lordship. When the cloud is on its brow, they are dark.
When the sunlight strikes it, they smile. Wherever you may go over the
waters of these lakes you shall see Mount Ampersand looking down at you,
and saying quietly, "This is my domain."

I never look at a mountain which asserts itself in this fashion without
desiring to stand on the top of it. If one can reach the summit, one
becomes a sharer in the dominion. The difficulties in the way only add
to the zest of the victory. Every mountain is, rightly considered, an
invitation to climb. And as I was resting for a month one summer at
Bartlett's, Ampersand challenged me daily.

Did you know Bartlett's in its palmy time? It was the homeliest,
quaintest, coziest place in the Adirondacks. Away back in the
ante-bellum days Vir