concealed weapons.

The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms
with the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not
unwilling to go to jail. But a practical difficulty arose. The jail
was locked up, the sheriff had gone away into the country with the
key, and no one could get in. It did not appear that there was any
provision for boarding the man in jail; no one in fact kept it. The
sheriff was sent for, but was not to be found, and the prisoner and
his captors loafed about the square all day, sitting on the fence,
rolling on the grass, all of them sustained by a simple trust that
the jail would be open some time.

Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the
jail. But we took a personal leaf out of this experience. Our
Virginia friends, solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had
urged us not to venture into it without arms--take at least, they
insisted, a revolver each. And now we had to congratulate ourselves
that we had not done so. If we had, we should doubtless on that
Sunday have been waiting, with the other law-breaker, for admission
into the Yancey County jail.

III

From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and
the capital of Buncombe County. It is distant some forty to
forty-five miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads. The
easier and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles, the
first stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late afternoon
when we were in condition to move.

The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville,
cross Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to
Asheville. He represented this route as shorter and infinitely more
picturesque. There was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way.
With scarcely a moment's reflection and while the horses were
saddling, we decided to ride to Big Tom Wilson's. I could not at the
time understand, and I cannot now, why the Professor consented. I
should hardly dare yet confess to my fixed purpose to ascend Mount
Mitchell. It was equally fixed in the Professor's mind not to do it.
We had not discussed it much. But it is safe to say that if he had
one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb Mitchell.
"Not," as he put it,--

"Not mine own fea