splendid of garb than the velvet azure of the distant ranges, the elms
had put forth delicate sprays of emerald tint, and the pines all bore
great wax-like tapers amidst their evergreen boughs, as if ready for
kindling for some great festival. It is a wonderful thing to hear a wind
singing in myriads of their branches at once. The surging tones of this
oratorio of nature resounded for miles along the deep indented ravines
and the rocky slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains. Now and again the
flow of a torrent or the dash of a cataract added fugue-like effects.
The men were constantly impressed by these paeans of the forests; the
tuft of violets abloom beneath a horse's hoofs might be crushed
unnoticed, but the acoustic conditions of the air and the high floating
of the tenuous white clouds against a dense blue sky, promising rain in
due season, evoked a throb of satisfaction in the farmer's heart not
less sincere because unaesthetic. The farmer's toil had hardly yet
begun, the winter's hunt being just concluded, and each of the
stationers with a string of led horses was bound for his camps and
caches to bring in the skins that made the profit of the season.

One of this group of three was the psalm-singer of the blockhouse. His
name was Xerxes Alexander Anxley, and he was unceremoniously called by
the community "X," and by Mivane "the unknown quantity," for he was
something of an enigma, and his predilections provoked much speculation.
He was a religionist of ascetic, extreme views,--a type rare in this
region,--coming originally from the colony of the Salzburgers
established in Georgia.

We are less disposed to be tolerant of individual persuasions which
imply a personal and unpleasant reflection. Xerxes Alexander Anxley
disapproved of dancing, and the community questioned his sanity; for
these early pioneers in the region of the Great Smoky Range carried the