| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
Introduction |
||
|
|
||
|
but very smooth and cozy within. Mr. Oliver interested us with tales of Theo Rose, the outlaw, who haunted these regions for years. He was finally captured and brought to Maryville. So widely had his fame spread that people lined both sides of the streets to see him as he was brought in. Then they flocked to the jail to look him over till at last Theo could stand it no longer and cried, "Y' damn fools, do y' think I got horns like a cow?" Theo, after a time, was released but later met a violent death at the hands of another.
As we proceeded we recognized the location apparently of two moonshine stills. Later we came upon a real bootleggers' camp where there was, at least, one fugitive from justice.
During the storm we were under rhododendrons that rose to twenty or twenty-five feet and whose trunks were almost as thick as a man's body. The marvel of these trails, it seems to me, is chiefly the soft paths under the arched laurel and ivy, for always the mountaineer names the rhododendron, laurel, and the laurel, ivy. During part of the ascent we were on the old Anderson Road, that highway undertaken so many years ago by Dr. Anderson, the founder of Maryville College, who constructed many miles of road with the aid of Cherokee Indian labor.
We traveled over this road to Spence Field and proceeded leisurely over the three points of Thunderhead, Rocky Top, Thunderhead itself and Laurel Top. The views of the Cove from each are splendid. Across on Rich Mountain we could sec the fire that for some days had been giving the warden trouble. Briar Knob lay beyond so we moved towards it. We planned to camp in Beech Nut Gap between Thunderhead and Briar Knob. The rest of the party had preceded me with the horses and were out of sight. Suddenly, without warning and in an instant, far quicker than I can write this, my head and face were literally plastered with yellow-jackets. They had been maddened apparently by the tread of the horses that had gone with the party before me. In attempting to brush the yellow-jackets from my face and head, 1 knocked off my glasses. Then I tried to cover my head with a slicker I carried. Being thus blinded, I fell almost upon the nest of the \el-low-jackets, injuring myself severely, but was able to rise, now thoroughly covered with yellowr-jackets, that attacked me with still greater ferocity. Meantime the pain was agonizing, for a yellow-jacket's sting takes effect at once. 1 was by this time thoroughly panic-stricken and ran as hard as 1 could, groaning in a muffled voice, for 1 was in torment. When I burst through the rhododendrons, clawing at my head, Mr. Oliver ran up and |
||
|
|
||
|
*4 |
||
|
|
||