Scott Burton in the Blue Ridge

by Edward G. Cheyney

It seemed to Scott to be a strange country. Long straight slopes stretched unbroken to the high, level ridges. They were grooved every quarter mile or less with shallow draws and not far below the ridge in these draws were springs which sent tiny, crystal-clear streams of ice-cold water trickling down into the valley. The low places and also many of the higher slopes were covered with a solid mat of rhododendron and laurel, so thick that a man was obliged to break or cut his way through it. It was the densest growth he had ever seen outside of the cane brakes of Florida. The great masses of white flowers made a wonderful sight, but after he had tried to run a line through the stuff for a couple of days he could no longer see the flowers.

But the ridges were the strangest of all. They were narrow but straight and level, so level that the old Indian trails followed them rather than the valleys. And the big red oaks came right up to the top. Only at long intervals did the ridges dip to a low pass; otherwise, they stretched for miles as level as the floor and were clear of underbrush.

It was on one of these level, open trails that Scott had the scare of his life. He had been familiar with razorback hogs in Florida. He had seen one tear a hound to pieces one day and had learned to fear the animals as he feared nothing else in the forest. Tall, thin and capable of great speed, they were entirely different from any hogs he had ever seen at home. Their heads were half as long as their bodies, with large tusks and powerful jaws, and they were fearless. Once they had made up their minds to charge, nothing would turn them. One had to kill them or get out of the way.

One morning as Scott was going out to work he saw an old sow with a litter of very small pigs in a clump of bushes beside the trail, and he gave her a wide berth. That evening on the way home he had forgotten all about her. He was absorbed in his plans for the logging job and wholly oblivious of his surroundings. The razorback never entered his head.

A large red oak three feet in diameter had fallen across the trail and Scott vaulted it mechanically, hardly knowing what he was doing. His feet had scarcely struck the ground when he heard a vicious “woof,” and the old sow darted out from under the other end of the log headed straight for him under a full head of steam.

Scott was frightened as he had never been frightened before. With one terrified spring he vaulted back over the log. That would have been sufficient protection from an ordinary pig, but a fallen tree meant nothing to a razorback. She cleared the tree without the slightest hesitation and was close behind him.

This unexpected jump so terrified Scott that he bolted like a frightened horse. He had never been a very fast runner but now he turned straight down the side of the mountain and made a new life record. It seemed to him that his feet were hitting the ground only about every thirty feet. Below him he saw a stream with high, steep banks, and at one point a tree had fallen across it. He made madly for that spot, somehow managed to stay on the log, tripped and fell in a heap on the other side. He scrambled to his feet expecting to find those ugly tusks at his very throat only to find instead that the old sow was fully satisfied with his retreat and was already trotting back up the slope to her babies.

Scott could not help laughing as he thought what a great show it would have been for a spectator. The conqueror of Foster Wait breaking the world’s record in his endeavors to get away from an angry pig. And yet it might have been serious, and he knew that he would run as fast or faster next time.

He was getting himself together for the climb back up the ridge when he noticed a deeply worn trail along the edge of the little creek. He thought at first that it was made by the razorbacks and the cattle which roamed around the mountains in considerable numbers, but he was surprised to find that the tracks were made by men, and some of them very recently.

Where could such a well-worn path as that lead to away up there on the mountainside? It might be a short cut over the ridge into the Tennessee valley, but why should so many people be traveling that way on foot? These people always rode horseback whenever they were going any considerable distance. He determined to follow it up and find out for himself. It was on the forest and it was his business to know about it.