The spectacular effects of the newly built railroad through Cherokee County are of ceaseless interest to the denizens of the little log-cabins that lie at wide intervals upon the route, along which, indeed, for many miles, the only trace of civilization and progress is the occasional swift apparition of the locomotive, and the long parallel rails glistening in the sun. The dwellers in a certain hut near the river might be considered to afford typical manifestations. The children appear behind the rickety fence, or perhaps perched on the giddy eminence of the topmost rail, and salute the engine with the dumb show of much shouting and sometimes of derision. An old man hastily hobbles to the door; a woman busy in hanging out clothes in the sun on the althea bushes desists, to stare; the round-eyed baby on the doorstep becomes motionless in amaze; the gazing dogs wag approving tails; the farmer, leaning on his plough-handles, watches it till it is but a speck in the distance; a cow in the pasture breaks into a shambling run and turns her head to look back in affright; and near the woods-lot is a panic-stricken filly, plunging, and kicking, and snorting. And however often the sight of it may be vouchsafed, always the great splendid burnished motor, with its clouds of white steam, its thunderous gait, its servitors standing upon the platforms, and all its trains of loaded coaches, from which human faces look forth, to be curiously scanned, is thus greeted. But at night a mystery hangs about it. The reverberations of its footsteps may sound in the deepest dreams. Where is the darkness so dense, when is the storm so wild, that it cannot make its way as it lists? It seems then to these simple folks like some development of abnormal force, as it rends the gloom with its white glare, as it skims the denser medium of the earth like a meteor through the sky,—or some strange serpent with a glittering eye, drawing swiftly its sparkling lengths along. The rocks clamor with the wild clangors it has taught them, and the tumultuous, exultant shrieks of its whistle pierce the night. And for a time after it is gone the rails shiver with the thought of it, and the hills cry out again and again with fear.