erriss is the only white woman who ever went beyond
Clingman or even ascended the Dome itself. She stayed at the Lufty Gap
while her husband and a Carolina mountaineer of my acquaintance
struggled through to Guyot and returned. Of this trip Mr. Ferriss sent
me the following account:

"We bought another axe of a moonshiner, and, with a week's provisions on
our backs, one of the guides and I took the Consolidated American Black
Bear and Ruffed Grouse Line for Mount Guyot, twenty miles farther by map
measurement. The bears were in full possession of the property, and we
could get no information in the settlements, as the settlers do not
travel this line. They did not know the names of the peaks other than as
tops of the Great Smokies--knew nothing of the character of the country
except that it was rough. The Tennesseeans seem afraid of the mountains,
and the Cherokees of the North Carolina side equally so; for, two miles
from camp, all traces of man, except surveyors' marks, had disappeared.
In the first two days we routed eight bears out of their nests and mud
wallows, and they seemed to stay routed, for upon our return we found
the blackberry crop unharvested and had a bag pudding--'duff'--or what
you call it.

"A surveyor had run part of the line this year, which helped us
greatly, and the bears had made well-beaten trails part of the way. In
places they had mussed up the ground as much as a barnyard. We tried to
follow the boundary line between the two States, which is exactly upon
the top of the Smokies, but often missed it. The government [state]
surveyor many years ago made two hacks upon the trees, but sometimes the
linemen neglected to use their axes for half a mile or so. It took us
three and one-half days to go, and two and one-half to return, and we
arose with the morning star and worked hard all day. The last day and a
half, going, there was nothing to guide us but the old hacks.

"Equipped with government maps, a good compass, and a little conceit, I
thought I could follow the boundary-line. In fact, at one time we
intended to go through without a guide. A trail that runs through
blackberry bushes two miles out of three is hard to follow. Then there
was a huckleberry bush reaching to our waists growing thickly upon the
ground as tomato vines, curled hard, and stubborn; and laurel much like
a field of lilac bushes, crooked and strong as iron. In one place we
walked fully a quarter of a mile over the tops of