"How marvellously tall and straight they are, and what fascinating glimpses they afford of lovely white solitudes !"

of highway, impassable were it not for his heavily loaded sleds.. Thus the Glen is accessible from North Conway in midwinter. Supposing the party to be merry and the horses willing, the twenty-two miles of silvery track is most seductive. By beautiful Intervale, with its matchless mountain views, across icebound rivers, skirting frozen waterfalls, in and out of the vast cup that holds little Jackson, and so to the forests of Pinkham Notch, we go, every moment gaining in exhilaration, every moment more impressed with the rare doings of winter among our New England mountains. As we climb the long, steep way to the "height o' land," we have almost unobstructed outlook through the leafless trees upon glorious prospects entirely shut from this road in summer.

Within three miles of the Glen we find a sawmill, with its boarding-house and barns, where we get hot coffee for ourselves and oats for our horses. Here we are directly under a shoulder of Mt. Washington, and the surroundings are striking in the extreme. At the Glen House we find the usual inhabited "cottage," and are told that there is a good road to Gorham.

In the early winter all the unique show places about North Conway may be visited, to the delight of the admirers of frost and ice effects. Ice-caves, fringed and studded and starred with jewels, snow pillars and arches, and fairy frost-traceries take the place of running waters, green screens of foliage, and the sweet companies of wildflowers, mosses, and ferns.

In taking his winter walk about the neighborhood the visitor need not be sur

By beautiful Intervale, with its matchless mountain views.

prised if he come upon the tracks of a bear that has lately crossed the highway. Such furry folk not infrequently descend to the valley on business of their own, which they strictly mind, - quite willing to let mankind alone, and desiring a like favor in return. The old men of the village will tell bear stories by the hour to an interested listener. A plucky fellow and worthy of sympathy, Bruin often proves himself to be suffering all things for liberty. Caught in a trap that is fastened by chain and grapple, he will sometimes break the chain and go on three legs, dragging the trap by the imprisoned foot over logs, through thickets, and across streams. Pathetic instances have happened of bears gnawing off the caught foot, that they might make their escape.

The old inhabitant glories also in tales of the early times, when the occasional boarder paid but a dollar and a half a week, and raised a rumpus when two dollars were demanded for twenty-one meals of mountain trout and the good things thereunto belonging. This delightful simplicity belonged to a period long before it was so much as dreamed that the mountain-passes would ever be penetrated by a steam-engine.

To those early days Ethan Allen Craw

Ripley-Crawford history, we learn that the five pioneers who came to Bartlett, Conway's northern boundary town, in 1783, drew their provisions from Dover, seventyfive miles of almost unbroken wilderness, on hand-sleds. Once when the Conway pioneers went down the Saco in their dugouts, canoeing and carrying, as smooth water or falls required, a heavy rain so swelled the river that their return was a long time delayed. In the meantime their families, with cupboards bare, lived on rations of seven potatoes a day.

"This summer" (1833), says the history,

need for a Fryeburger to make efforts on his own account, the fame of Webster being considered sufficient for the whole town to the end of time.

On Lovell's pond near by, Paugus, the chief of the Pequakets, made a stand against the intrusion of the white man. A hundred and sixty years ago the terrible battle was fought, in which red man and pale-face fell in fearful slaughter, chief and commander dying with their men. Despite the length of time, the story is fresh, and every one of the thousands of visitors to the mountains hears

anew the tale of the brave Captain Lovewell and his heroic little band. The name of Paugus is often on the lips of the tourist, for one of the old chief's beloved mountains is so called.

The business that sustained the little settlement at Conway over a hundred years ago, that of" floating logs and masts down the Saco," is still continued. Every spring, when the upper snows melt and fill the lowland streams, down from the mountain camp comes the "drive" of logs, with all its picturesque accompaniments.

The sugar industry, which also had its part in sustaining the early settlers, is still carried on in Conway to a considerable extent. The noble maples of the Intervale suffer every spring the indignity of tapping, -and boiling down and sugaring off go on in the beautiful sweeping meadows while yet no sign of spring appears save the flow of the quickened sap.

After a highland storm the clearing up is a most poetic affair. I remember once looking out upon the Moat range and seeing a vast wall of delicate gray vapor, from which ethereal rags were constantly being torn to go floating off up the mountain side, appearing presently as bright clouds. upon the blue ground of heaven.

few moments the wall had fallen apart, dissolved, disappeared, - only here and there lay a gauzy strip across the shoulder of a cliff.

I shall always remember one marvellous winter sunrise. It was a cold, clear December morning: above

western range, a cold, pure white. A moment more, and the snowy western crests are suddenly touched with an unrivalled color, a dye dropped out of heaven; for only in a celestial laboratory can such tints be compounded. Swiftly this beautiful light runs down the snowy mountain sides, flushing the whole, except where the great gorges and hollows hold, still, their depth of shadow. The pink wave has reached the dense, almost black, border of forest at the mountain's base, but not yet has it touched the skirts of the meadows, that still wait for it, as the shore waits for the tide. Against the sky the elms are etched in black, and one great oak stands out, in marvellous distinctness, against the rosy mountains. But the sun is hurrying up the east; soon the whole valley will be drenched in the welcome flood.

When Starr King passed from earth, the White Mountains lost their poet. His book, The White Hills, is running over with enthusiastic descriptions, loving reminiscences, and interesting facts, all bearing the distinction of the poet's subtle touch. He, too, gives his testimony to the winter

the low eastern mountains glowed a vivid sky; midway to the zenith great flakes of exquisite rose; along the southern horizon, tints rapidly deepening to saffron; down the western sky-slope, a vast cloud, all soft pink; and the gigantic

splendor of his beloved hills. Speaking of the mountains, as seen from Lancaster, he says: "On all the bald ridges and crests the silver splendor was relieved against the blue. This makes the richest charm of the Alps; and one could, then,