Mitchell’s Peak rises to an elevation of 6,711 feet, and forms one of the spurs in the short, lofty backbone of a range termed, from the somber forests covering its upper slopes, the Black mountains. The range is about twenty miles in length. It is wholly in Yancy county, and trends due north toward the Iron mountains. A wide gap, filled with low mountains and the valleys of the Toe, stretches between its northern terminal point, Bowlen’s Pyramid, and the Smokies. On the summit of Mitchell’s Peak is the solitary grave of Professor Elisha Mitchell, piled round with stones, and at present bare of monument. The descent to the Toe is a difficult journey down the east slope of the mountain. The exact distance in miles is unknown. You can guess at it as well as the guide, and most likely there will be no difference between his and your figures; for his will be stretched by exaggeration, and your’s by the tediousness of the descent. As soon as you reach the stream pay and dismiss him, and pursue your way, casting your flies where the water is most inviting. There is no reason why 100 trout should not grace the angler’s string by the time he has finished for the day, and, at some humble cabin far below, is snugly ensconsed for the night. [Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE TOE.] There are many spots of rare, sylvan beauty in the region of the upper Toe; many spots of wild and melancholy magnificence,--dells that seem the natural haunts for satyrs and fawns, and where a modern Walter Scott might weave and locate some most fascinating fictions. The mountaineer is apparently devoid of superstition; and, as far as the writer could ascertain, no legends, like those of the Catskills, shed their hallowed light on any portion of the solitude. In lieu of a legend let him tell a ghost story. One ghost has no known grave; the other’s lies beside the stream in an umbrageous dale high up in the mountains. The careless stranger passing down the mountain would not perceive it. It is a low mound scarcely rising above the level ground. Covering it are light-green mosses, as ancient apparently as the lichens which decorate the trunk of the two-hundred-year-old water birch standing in lieu of a headstone at one end of it. There are no rocks or stones to be seen, except on the opposite side of the tree where its roots are exposed. The stream is noisy; but it could not be otherwise in so rocky a channel, and so is excusable for disturbing the quiet of the grave. There are other trees shadowing the circle, but beside the monarch birch they sink into insignificance. In the grave was once placed the cold form of a white-haired old man; but half a century has passed since then, and what was flesh and bone has long ago resolved to natural dust.