There is a general putting on of wraps; then we go down to the prairie, where Mr. Burnet and Harrison have the horses saddled and ready. We mount, and, with the cloud condensing moisture all around us, set our faces down the mountain. “I believe,” says Charley, addressing Sylvia, “that I have heard you express a wish to be lost in the mountains. Here is a golden opportunity for such an adventure. You have only to drop behind, to lose the path a little, and you will be lost in a wilderness where we might search for days and weeks without finding you.” “But how is one to drop behind when one is mounted on a mule that will not go anywhere but in front?” she asks, pulling with fruitless energy at the rein of her lively, irrepressible animal. [Illustration: The Descent.] This descent of the mountain is not likely to be forgotten by any of us. Through the dark balsam-firs, past beds of exquisite moss and graceful ferns, we wind in single file, doing no more than keep in sight of the figure immediately in front. All around is the dense, white cloud, the moisture of which, like fine rain on a winter day, washes our faces and covers our garments. I laugh when I turn and look at Eric, who is riding behind me. He has pulled his hat over his brows and his overcoat-collar up round his ears, but the ends of his long mustache are dripping with crystal drops, and himself and his steed looming gigantically large through the mist, which seems to possess a magnifying power. Now and then I catch a glimpse of the line of figures ahead, and they resemble a procession of muffled specters more than the cavalcade which only yesterday set forth so “gayly bedight.” We do not leave the cloud until we have passed out of the region of the firs, and entered the fair green forest, in which we hear again the voice of the impetuous streams as they come rushing down the mountain-ravines. Here, to our surprise, we find half-cloudy sunlight, which grows brighter as we ride downward, until it is beaming on us with oppressive heat, as we dismount, tired and jaded, at the door of “Patton’s.” CHAPTER XIII. “All by the shady greenwood-tree The merry, merry archers roam; Jovial and bold and ever free, They tread their woodland home.” “And where,” asks Aunt Markham, resignedly, “are we going next?” “We are going,” answers Eric, “to Transylvania, which I consider, take it all in all, the loveliest county in the mountains.” “Then it must be a remarkable county,” says Mrs. Cardigan, looking up from a map which she is studying with Mr. Lanier—this has become one of our chief amusements since we obtained a bird’s-eye view of the country from the summit of the Black. “It is a remarkable country for deer,” says Charley. “I am glad to hear that we are going there.—But why not venture a little farther, Eric?—why not carry this party of intrepid explorers into the Balsam Mountains?”