One party, consisting of three persons of rather a superior class, remained for dinner. They addressed their conversation occasionally to me, and evinced great curiosity to find out the place of my destination, and the reason that I preferred the mountain-road to that usually taken by ordinary travellers. I felt no disposition to be communicative on these points, and the strangers were far from satisfied with my replies. When my mare was brought to the door, my holsters did not escape their observation; and as I rode away, I overheard the tallest of the three exclaim, “By Heaven! I’ll bet five pounds that the--” I could not hear the remainder of the remark. The occurrence not agreeable, however, with ten miles of a desolate ride before me. I had other besides personal cares. In my life I never had possessed one-fourth the sum I carried; and the pocket, rather than the person, alarmed me. I thought the matter over. I saw no fire-arms with the strangers, and of course I was fairly a match for three. My mare was fast; and I determined quietly to surmount a long and gradual rise, make play down the falling ground, and then bid pursuit defiance. Ignorance of the locality rendered my last design abortive. Half way up the hill, a path but little used, if one could judge from its un-frequent hoof-marks, branched from the main road. I hesitated which to take; but of two bad paths, I chose the better, and followed the more beaten route. I rode a mile, topped the acclivity, and followed a path skirting a highland lake and traversing a long and heathy level. Anxiously I looked back, but not a traveller was visible. My fears vanished--and I smiled to think how very nervous the possession of property makes a man. The scene before me was wild and picturesque. A long ravine skirted by a mountain-stream, that occasionally crossed the road through half-ruined bridges, descended between two lofty hills which completely shut out the setting sun. At the bottom of this romantic pass, a lake of considerable extent, interspersed with numerous islands, received the rivulets that hurried down the valley. In front, the sun was setting gloriously, and flung across the gorge of the ravine a curtain of burning gold which rested on the waters of the lake below. It was, indeed, a splendid landscape--and tradition added to its interest.