The last spoonfull of medicine in a flask taken from the saddle-bags enabled him to mount his horse, and we rode off around a flinty mountain with warm air circling through the trees and the hollow voice of the upper falls of the Tuckasege, seen below us in the distance, sounding in our ears. We dragged our horses after us down a steep declivity; passed a muddy-looking cabin; wended through a deserted farm under an untrimmed orchard, with rotten peaches hanging to the limbs; startled several coveys of quails from the rank grass; entered a green, delicious forest alive with barking gray squirrels; and then, through several rail fences and troublesome gates, reached the sandy road leading into Hamburg,--a store with a post office. It is the ancient site of a fort of that name erected for use in case of Indian depredations. Here we tried to get something to more fully resuscitate the still trembling artist, but everything had gone dry; and all the encouragement we received was a cordial invitation, from a man who was hauling a log to a neighboring saw-mill, to come and spend a week at his house, and he would have a keg of blockade on hand for us. This manner of the mountaineers of inviting strangers to visit them is illustrative of their warm-hearted natures. W. N. Heddin was the logger who extended this invitation. I had met him once before while on a tramp through Rabun county, Georgia, where he was then living. A minute’s stop at his house, on that occasion to procure a drink of water, was the extent of our acquaintance. His farm was situated at the base of a frowning, rocky wall called Buzzard cliffs, and although just outside the North Carolina line deserves some mention, because of certain interest connected with it. This interest is gold. The sand in the beds of some of the smooth-flowing rivulets down the sultry southern slope of the Blue Ridge have, as regards the precious mineral, panned out well in the past. Over thirty years ago the stream through Heddin’s property was discovered to contain gold; and for a time, as he related, was worked at the rate of ten pennyweights a day per man. After living with the gold fever for many years, he lately sold his property, and removed across the Blue Ridge. Declining Heddin’s proffered hospitality we pushed on, gradually but imperceptibly ascending the Blue Ridge. I was riding on ahead. Suddenly my companion called to me. “Say, I’ve lost my overcoat.” “Too bad! Shall we return and search for it?” “No; but it’s strange how I’m losing everything.” “Yes. You lost your pipe yesterday; your breath this morning, and now it’s your coat.” “Just so; and do you know, I’m getting demoralized. Something worse is going to happen. Say!” “What?” “If you hear anything weighing about one hundred and ten pounds fall off my horse, turn and come back, will you?” “Yes. Why?” “You’ll know _I’m_ lost. Hang me, but I feel cut up!”