boughs of the elm above hang the orioles' gray castles where the
females' beady eyes from their dangling citadels look out on the
alien foes who pass beneath or up above where the great hawk
swims the aerial blue like a plane without bombs. The spider
weaves pontoons from tree to bush and sits in his silvery
fortress trying to beguile the unwary flies by his kingly
demeanor. The great blue heron, like a French sentinel on duty
along the muddy Meuse, awaits in silence any hostile
demonstrations from those green-coated Boches among their
camouflaged fortresses of spatterdocks and lily pads. The
muskrat goes scouring the water, searching for booty near the
river's bank or submerges like a submarine when discovered by a
noisy convoy of Senegalese boys on the bank. A wily weasel, no
doubt considered by those cliff-dwellers, the kingfishers, as
one of the "Ladies from Hell," was being hustled out of their
dugout at the point of the bayonet. No matter about the "kilts";
if he ever had them they were lost by his hurried flight.

The North, South and Middle rivers join in sisterly union near
Port Republic to form the Shenandoah. From Lexington to Harper's
Ferry at the foot of the valley the distance is one hundred
fifty-five miles. The "Valley's Turnpike" runs northward through
Harrisonburg, New Market, Woodstock, Strassburg, and Winchester
to Martinsburg. And what a pike it is! And through what superb
scenes it leads you! "At Staunton the Virginia Central railroad
crosses the valley on the way to Charlottesville. Fifty-five
miles north of Staunton an isolated chain of mountains known as
the Massanutten range, which is high and abrupt, divides the
valley for more than forty miles until at Strassburg it falls
again suddenly to the plain. Like the Appalachians it breaks