“When you find a bear in a place like this,” she says, regarding it gravely from the height of her mule, “what do you do to him?” “Shoots him, ginerally,” answers Mr. Burnet, with a broad smile. “And you call that hunting!” she says, scornfully. “Why, I should think you would feel like a coward to come and shoot a poor trapped animal.” “Looking at the matter in that light, all hunting is cowardly,” says Eric. “But if the bear had been stealing your hogs for several months, you would probably be willing to shoot him when you found him in a trap.—Lead on, Dan. I am growing—to put it moderately—rather hungry.” Dan leads on, and presently we emerge on the largest and most beautiful of the little prairies through which we have passed. This stretch of open ground lies at the foot of the highest peak, the abrupt sides of which rise in conical shape before us. It is here, Mr. Burnet tells us, that the mountaineers who were searching for Professor Mitchell found the first trace of the way he had taken. “We had been sarchin’ from Friday to Tuesday,” he says, “and on Tuesday we was pretty nigh disheartened, when Wilson—an old hunter from over in Yancey—said he hadn’t no doubt the professor had tried to go down to Caney Valley by a trail they two had followed thirteen years afore, and which leads that way”—he points down into the dark wilds below us. “Well, we looked along the edge of this here prairie till we found a track. Wilson was right—he _had_ tried to go down to Caney Valley. We followed his trail for about four miles, and I was one of them what found him at last.” “He had lost his way,” says Eric. “I have seen the spot—they call it Mitchell’s Falls now—where he died. A stream of considerable size plunges over a precipice of about forty feet into a basin fourteen feet deep by as many wide. Into this he fell— probably at night.” “But how was it possible to bring a dead body up these steeps?” Sylvia asks, addressing Mr. Burnet. “We brought it in a sheet slung to the top of stout poles,” he answers. “Then it were carried down to Asheville, and then brought up again and buried there”—he nods to the peak above us. “In the warmth of their great friendship and admiration, people thought that he ought to rest in the midst of the scenes he had explored so fearlessly and loved so well,” says Eric.