It was about the middle of the afternoon when a turn in the mountain-road brought to view a cluster of log-cabins, which I knew to be the camp of Wolf Run. The cabins were splendid buildings of their kind. The logs were clean and fresh and were securely fitted, while the chinks were well plastered with mud, and the roofs tightly shingled, and the gables closely boarded-up. No one was in sight from where I stood; but there issued, from one of the smaller cabins, the ring of a blacksmith's hammer, and I found a group of men about the cabin-door. The camp stood in a little clearing on the mountain; and in contrast with the shadowy gloom in the forest around it, the sunlight flooded this open rift with concentrated light. The chestnut-trees on the edge of the wood shone like burnished gold, and the maple leaves, still green, nearest to the trees, and but lightly touched with red along the boughs, deepened gradually, until, in the full sunlight, they blazed in crimson splendor. It was still with the stillness of autumn, and the sound of the blacksmith's stroke and the answering ring of the anvil were echoed far into the forest, where you could hear, fretting down its stony bed, a mountain-stream, which, in the speech of the lumbermen, is called a "run." I had slipped the pack from my back, and carrying it in my hand I went up to a group of men. One of them stood leaning against the door-post. He was very tall and straight, and under his wide sombrero, the upper forehead was white and smooth as a girl's. The brows were arched above dark-brown eyes, and his nose was straight and sharply chiselled; the cheeks were lean and ruddy brown; and under a light mustache was a clean-cut, shapely mouth that answered in strength to a well-rounded, slightly protruding chin. His hands were thrust into the side-pockets of a bright blanket jacket, and his dark trousers were tucked into a pair of top-boots, that were laced over the insteps and up the outer sides of the legs. All the men were eying me with that disturbing look; even the blacksmith had quit his work and joined them. In the questioning silence I summoned what courage I had, and walked up to young Achilles at the cabin-door, and thus addressed him: "Is this the camp of Wolf Run?" "Yes." "Is Mr. Benton here?" [Benton is my version of the superintendent's name.] "No, he's in English Centre." "Is the camp boss here?" [That was a rash plunge on my part, but it was successful.]