e little man
trudged on alone.

Tall tangled grass grew in the roadway, and the trees bended obstructing
branches. The little man followed on over pine-clothed ridges and down
through water-soaked swales. His shoes were cut by rocks of the
mountains, and he sank ankle-deep in mud and moss of swamps. A curve
just ahead lured him miles.

Finally, as he wended the side of a ridge, the road disappeared from
beneath his feet. He battled with hordes of ignorant bushes on his way
to knolls and solitary trees which invited him. Once he came to a tall,
bearded pine. He climbed it, and perceived in the distance a peak. He
uttered an ejaculation and fell out.

He scrambled to his feet, and said: "That's Jones's Mountain, I guess.
It's about six miles from our camp as the crow flies."

He changed his course away from the mountain, and attacked the bushes
again. He climbed over great logs, golden-brown in decay, and was
opposed by thickets of dark-green laurel. A brook slid through the ooze
of a swamp; cedars and hemlocks hung their sprays to the edges of pools.

The little man began to stagger in his walk. After a time he stopped and
mopped his brow.

"My legs are about to shrivel up and drop off," he said.... "Still if I
keep on in this direction, I am safe to strike the Lumberland Pike
before sundown."

He dived at a clump of tag-alders, and emerging, confronted Jones's
Mountain.

The wanderer sat down in a clear place and fixed his eyes on the summit.
His mouth opened widely, and his body swayed at times. The little man
and the peak stared in silence.

A lazy lake lay asleep near the foot of the mountain. In its bed of
water-grass some frogs leered at the sky and crooned. The sun sank in
red silence, and the shadows of the pines grew formidable. The expectant
hush of evening, as if some thing were going to sing a hymn, fell upon
the peak and the little man.

A leaping pickerel off on the water created a silver circle that was
lost in black shadows. The little man shook himself and started to his
feet, crying: "For the love of Mike, there's eyes in this mountain! I
feel 'em! Eyes!"

He fell on his face.

When he looked again, he immediately sprang erect and ran.

"It's comin'!"

The mountain was approaching.

The little man scurried, sobbing through the thick growth. He felt his
brain turning to water. He vanquished brambles with mighty bounds.

But after a time he came again to the foot of the mountain.