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 fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,"
had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down
to Wilson's. When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy
as anywhere - a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and
never got off her horse. You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's,
you can go any way you please.
Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount
Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most
characteristic productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman,
hunter, guide.
