A tramp of fifteen minutes through some scrubby brushwood, brought us to the base of a steep stony ridge covered with tall and thrifty hickories and a few oaks and maples intermixed, rising so steeply from the shore that it was necessary not only to strain every nerve of the leg, but to swing our bodies up from tree to tree, by dint of hand. It was indeed a hard and heavy tug; and I had pretty tough work, what between the exertion of the ascent, and the incessant fits of laughter into which I was thrown by the grotesquely agile movements of fat Tom; who, grunting, panting, sputtering, and launching forth from time to time the strangest and most blasphemously horrid oaths, contrived to make way to the summit faster than either of us--crashing through the dense underwood of juniper and sumac, uprooting the oak saplings as he swung from this to that, and spurning down huge stones upon us, as we followed at a cautious distance. When we at last crowned the ridge, we found him, just as Harry had predicted, stretched in a half recumbent attitude, leaning against a huge gray stone, with his fur cap and double-barrel lying upon the withered leaves beside him, puffing, as Archer told him, to his mighty indignation, like a great grampus in shoal water. After a little rest, however, Falstaff revived, though not before he had imbibed about a pint of applejack, an occupation in which he could not persuade either of us, this time, to join him. Descending from our elevated perch, we now got into a deep glen, with a small brooklet winding along the bottom, bordered on either hand by a stripe of marshy bog earth, bearing a low growth of alder bushes, mixed with stunted willows. On the side opposite to that by which we had descended, the hill rose long and lofty, covered with mighty timber-trees standing in open ranks and overshadowing a rugged and unequal surface, covered with whortleberry, wintergreen, and cranberries, the latter growing only along the courses of the little runnels, which channeled the whole slope. Here, stony ledges and gray broken crags peered through the underwood, among the crevices of which the stunted cedars stood thick set, and matted with a thousand creeping vines and brambles; while there, from some small marshy basin, the giant Rhododendron Maximum rose almost to the height of a timber tree. "Here, Tom," said Harry, "keep you along this run--you'll have a woodcock every here and there, and look sharp when you hear them fire over the ridge, for they can't shoot to speak of, and the ruffed grouse will cross--you know. You, master Frank, stretch your long legs and get three parts of the way up this hill--over the second mound--there, do you see that great blue stone with a thunder-splintered tree beside it? just beyond that! then turn due west, and mark the trending of the valley, keeping a little way ahead of me, which you will find quite easy, for I shall have to beat across you both. Go very slow, Tom--now, hurrah!"