"He said _fifteen_ a moment since," grumbled Boggs in an undertone to himself, "now he's qualifying it. First knock-down for the doubters. Go on." "Well, say fifteen then; my memory is not good on dates; my brother and I made a trip to the Peaks of Otter, just over the North Carolina line. I was a boy of twenty and he was a man of thirty-two. He was a dead shot with a rifle or pistol and could knock a cent to pieces edgewise at fifty yards. While I painted, he scalped red squirrels and chipmunks with a long Flobert pistol that carried a ball the size of a buckshot; a toy really, but true as a Winchester. "We found the Peaks, or rather the peak we climbed, a sugar-loaf of a mountain with almost perpendicular slopes near its top, crowned by a cluster of enormous boulders. From its crest one can see all over that part of the State. Half-way up we stopped at a small tavern, inquired the way to the top, borrowed two small blankets of the landlord, and bought some cold meat and bread and a few teaspoonfuls of tea. These we put in a haversack, and leaving my heavy painting-trap we continued on about three o'clock in the afternoon to climb the peak. The only things we carried, outside of the provisions and blankets, were my pocket sketch-book and the Flobert pistol. It was the worst I have ever done in all my mountain climbing. Sometimes we edged along a precipice and sometimes we pulled ourselves up a cliff almost perpendicular. There was no doubt about the path--that was plainly marked by sign-boards and blazed trees and the wear of many feet, and then again it was perfectly plain that it was the only way up the mountain. "We reached the top about sundown and found a cabin built of logs, with one window, a sawed pine door with a bolt inside, a rusty stove and pipe, and a low bed covered with dry straw. Scattered about were two or three wooden stools, and on the window-sill stood a tin coffee-pot and two tin cups. "When it began to grow dark and the chill of the mountains had settled down, we started a fire in the stove, put on the pot, dumped in our tea, and began to spread out our provisions. Then we lighted one of the candles the inn people had given us, and ate our supper.