Thanks to this young gentleman’s somewhat arbitrary energy, the good rooms— and they are excellent ones—are obtained. In this respect we are more fortunate than many others. Let people show any capability of being imposed upon, and hotel proprietors are commonly the people to take advantage of the fact. “It is the most disagreeable feature of this place,” says a gentleman a few days later, “that you can obtain nothing without such a great amount of unpleasant bullying.” Not alone at the Warm Springs, however, does such short-sighted policy prevail. Who that has traveled has not suffered often in this manner, and been wrought to indignation by the deception and imposition which the keepers of many places of resort delight to practise, and injure themselves more grievously than they know by practising them? The rooms at the Warm Springs are admirably furnished, as far superior in size, comfort, and upholstery to those of the famous Virginia White Sulphur as a first-class hotel is superior to an ordinary boarding-house. And the table is as good as can reasonably be desired. Sylvia, it is true, casts a discontented glance over the bill-of-fare and remarks that she sees no mention of venison or pheasants—but Eric and Charley laugh at her. “You’d like a bear-steak, also, wouldn’t you?” the latter asks. “You must go a little farther from cut-glass and damask before you find those things, _ma belle_.” “Is there no game around here?” asks Mr. Lanier. “There ought to be.” “There is none for amateur hunters,” answers Eric. “I was here for a week last summer, and I soon saw how the thing was managed. A party of gentlemen went on a deer-hunt. Being ignorant of the country and having no dogs, they engaged some of the mountaineers to ‘drive’ for them. These fellows regard the deer as their monopoly, so they station the strangers at certain stands, then take the dogs and drive the deer in the opposite direction, receive their pay in the evening, and have probably also a deer which has been killed by one of their own number. After trying this lively amusement for a few days, the would-be hunters are generally disgusted, and firmly persuaded that there is no such thing as game in the mountains.” “Is there no chance of a stranger _ever_ killing a deer, then?” asks Mr. Lanier. “Not unless he is one of a party who know the country and drive for themselves. Even under those circumstances, however, game is scarce around here—so scarce that it is not worth hunting. I knew that, so I left my gun in Asheville. We shall not have a good deer-hunt until we go to Buck Forest—eh, Charley?” “What is Buck Forest?” asks Sylvia. “The jolliest place in the mountains,” answers Charley. “Let that suffice until you go there.”