The ledge up which the ladders led from the direction of the gorge, it will be remembered, formed the northern support of the plateau. The unscalable cliff terminated its extent to the south; and of the two longer sides the one on the west overlooked Whiteside Cove, and that on the east Cashiers valley. The view into the Cove over the boulder side of the mountain, after the trees which grew on the edge were reached, was broad and unobstructed. On the eastern side there was but one gap in the timber which covered the mountain-side from the end of the ledge to the cliff, through which a perfect view could be had of the settlement in the valley. Before Andy Zachary left the plateau, Lieutenant Coleman had sketched a rude plot of the mountains overlooking the valley, and at the guide\'s dictation had written down the name of each peak. Yellow Mountain was the nearest, and showed a dark, timbered ridge beyond the gorge. At the northern end of the valley rose the mass of Sheep Cliff, and joined to it were the lesser ridges of Big and Little Terrapin. Hog\'s Back showed its blue top ten miles away to the east, beyond the nearer wooded ridges that shut in the valley on that side, down to Rock Mountain and Chimney Top, which reared their sharp peaks to the right of the plateau. Directly below this eastern outlook lay the one white road which ran through the valley, the same road along which the cavalcade had picked its silent way in the small hours of the morning, five months before, when they had come, full of hope, to establish the station.
Our exiles up to this time had been so busy with their preparations for winter that they had given but little attention to their neighbors below. They had noticed on frosty mornings columns of white smoke rising straight into the air from half a dozen cabins in the valley, most of which had been hidden from view by the thick foliage during the summer months. Now that the November winds had stripped the trees of their leaves, two cabins appeared in the direction of Sheep Cliff, standing side by side among the bare oaks on a knoll which sloped gently to the road. The two seemed to be precisely alike, with rude verandas in front, and at no great distance back of these, in an open clearing, surrounded with orchards and stacks, was a long house with a heavy stone chimney at each end. Scattered to the right of the plateau were several cabins, and close on the road a square brown building which looked to be a store. Just below this point of rocks where the three solders looked down on the valley stood the largest house in the settlement, old and rambling in construction, with lurching chimneys and roofs extending to left and rear. The woodpile was at the opposite side of the road, and comfortable log barns stood on the hillside above. All these details were to be seen with the naked eye, but the powerful telescope of the station revealed much more, even showing the faces and forms of the people who lived in the cabins.
As the three exiles were lounging together one afternoon at this very point of rocks, studying their neighbors through the telescope as if they had been the inhabitants of another planet, Philip broke the silence with quite an original speech—one only he could make.
"See here, fellows," he said with that new familiarity they had begun to show toward each other, "as we are likely to take considerable interest in these people down below, it will be mighty inconvenient when we talk about them to say, \'The man in the big house across the road from the log barn did this,\' or \'The man in the farthest twin cabin did that,\' or \'The old chap in the long house flanked by orchards and stacks did something else\'; so I say, let\'s give them family names."
The others laughingly admitted that the idea was not a bad one, and Bromley suggested at random the names Smith, Jones, and Brown.
"As good as any others," said Philip.
"Very well," said Bromley, "then we will call this first neighbor \'Smith.\'"
"No, you don\'t," cried Philip, with much spirit. "I\'ve taken a prejudice against that old fellow, because he sits on the woodpile and smokes his pipe every afternoon while his wife does the milking. Smith is too respectable a name for him."
"I didn\'t know," said Coleman, laughing, "that there was any particular virtue in the name of Smith."
"I didn\'t say there was," said Philip, "but if this first old loafer should turn out half as bad as I fear he will, the name would be a slur on too many families, you know. Now, if it\'s all the same to you, gentlemen, we will begin at the other end and call the man of the orchard \'Smith.\' \'Jones\' naturally falls to the owner of the second twin cabin, and this fellow below becomes—say, \'Shifless,\' whether he likes it or not."
As no one of the three had ever heard of any one of the name of Shifless, Philip\'s arrangement was agreed to, and from time to time they settled other names on the dwellers in every cabin in sight, and one column of smoke which rose from behind an intervening ridge was spoken of as "Thompson\'s smoke."
On the morning of December 23 in that first year on the mountain, the three soldiers were thrown into a great state of excitement by a remarkable discovery. Coleman and Bromley were clearing off the snow from a stack of pea-vines, preparatory to beating them out on the floor of the house, when Philip came running toward them, holding up the telescope and beckoning them to meet him. He said he had seen three United States officers at the long cabin under Sheep Cliff, which was known as Smith\'s. The others needed no urging to follow Philip. Indeed, they ran so rapidly over the frozen ground in the rare upper air that they scarcely had breath for speaking when they arrived on the point of rocks. Philip directed the glass on the house again, and then, with a cry of delight, he passed it to Coleman.
"There they are! There they are! See? By the end of the house!"
As soon as the lieutenant had adjusted the powerful glass to his eye, he had the men before him almost as distinctly as if they had been standing within hailing distance. There was no mistaking the evidence that two of them were officers of what the three soldiers considered the beaten and disbanded army, while, although the third was in citizen\'s dress, it was unlike the dress of the mountaineers.
"Heaven help them!" exclaimed Lieutenant Coleman, as he gazed in amazement on the scene at the end of the long house. "How ragged they are! They must have been hunted through the woods like wild animals. Both of the two in uniform wear jackets of the mounted service, and—stop—as sure as you are born, the taller of the two is a lieutenant of artillery. He has but one shoulder-strap left, and that has too dark a ground for either cavalry or infantry. They may be from the staff. There is something about their uniforms, in spite of rags and dirt, that makes me think so. The other carries a roll of blankets over his shoulder—he must be a soldier; and they have just come in, too, for their haversacks are mighty lean."
It looked as if the poor fellows had found friends at last; for, while they stood talking with two women at the end of the house, Smith himself, who was a lank mountaineer with a red beard, was lounging by the gate with his gun on his shoulder, as if watching against surprise from the road. Bromley, who had been patiently waiting, now took the glass.
"By Jove!" he cried, "there are four girls there now, and the short officer is going into the house. You are right, Fred; the old man is on guard, with a sharp eye in his head, too. They are all going into the house now, by Neighbor Smith\'s advice, I fancy. I\'ll tell you who they are, Fred. They are escaped prisoners from Charleston. They must have been hiding in the woods and swamps for months. If that is the condition of the officers of the United States that were, a thousand times better is our lot on this free mountain-top." And returning the glass, Bromley ventured some bitter reflections on the Congress and the high officials who had conducted the war to a disastrous end.
"We must not l............