CHAPTER XIX.

CLEARWATER GLEN.

Next morning we came into Clearwater Glen.

Shalah spoke to me of it before we started. He did not fear the
Cherokees, who had come from the far south of the range and had never
been settled in these parts. But he thought that there might be others
from the back of the hills who would have crossed by this gap, and
might be lying in the lower parts of the glen. It behoved us,
therefore, to go very warily. Once on the higher ridges, he thought we
might be safe for a time. An invading army has no leisure to explore
the rugged summits of a mountain.

The first sight of the place gave me a strong emotion of dislike. A
little river brawled in a deep gorge, falling in pools and linns like
one of my native burns. All its course was thickly shaded with bushes
and knotted trees. On either bank lay stretches of rough hill pasture,
lined with dark and tangled forests, which ran up the hill-side till
the steepness of the slope broke them into copses of stunted pines
among great bluffs of rock and raw red scaurs. The glen was very
narrow, and the mountains seemed to beetle above it so as to shut out
half the sunlight. The air was growing cooler, with the queer, acrid
smell in it that high hills bring. I am a great lover of uplands, and
the sourest peat-moss has a charm for me, but to that strange glen I
conceived at once a determined hate. It is the way of some places with
some men. The senses perceive a hostility for which the mind has no
proof, and in my experience the senses are right.