"Well, boy," laughed Dr. Phil, "if that's a railroad, Nature built it,
and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and gravel of
which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a great rush of
waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the ridge a
'Horseback.' If you like, we'll climb to the top of it, after we've had
our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding country."

So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
hundred feet in height.

But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
mountains in Maine,--great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.

Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "There's the home of storms! There's old Katahdin!
The Indians named it Ktaadn 'the biggest mountain.'"

"Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?" asked Dr. Phil.

A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:--