The sun was set to us behind the ridge of Mount Willard, when we reached the 'Willey Slide,' and Alice and I walked the last two miles to the 'Mountain Notch.' Just after we alighted from the wagon, and while we were yet close to it, at a turn in the road I perceived a pedestrian traveler before us, who, seeming startled by the sound of our wheels, sprang lightly over the fence. I involuntarily withdrew my arm from Alice's, and stood still, gazing after him for the half-instant that passed before he disappeared in the forest. 'Are you frightened?' said Alice; 'this is a lonely road; shall I hail the wagon?' 'Oh! no,' I replied. 'But,' she urged, 'this may be some fugitive from justice.' 'Nonsense, Alice; don't you see by his air that he is a gentleman?' 'No,' she saw nothing 'but that he was light of foot, and anxious to escape observation.' I had seen more; I had seen, or my mind being prepossessed by one image, I had shaped the reality to the imagination, as ghost-seers do, and in the pedestrian had seen that form that henceforward is to me as if it had passed the bourne whence no traveler returns. It was a mere fancy. Alice--she is a cautious little woman--was continually looking back, from fear; and I--I may as well confess it--from hope; but we saw nothing more of the traveler. He was truly a fugitive from us--or, more probably, in spite of the gentlemanly graces my imagination had lent him, a collier returning to his shanty in the forest. The apparition had spoiled our twilight walk. The brief twilight of October was shortened by the mountains that rise like walls on either side of the road, and Alice hurried forward, so that we had no time to look for the cascades, and forms of animals, and profiles of men, that we had been forewarned we should see on the hill-sides. The stars were coming out, and the full moon--indicated by the floods of silver light it sent up from behind Mount Webster--when we passed through the portal of the 'Notch' and came upon the level area where the 'Crawford House' now stands.