He followed, mile after mile, its
sinuosities. It was a wild, and, seemingly, an untrodden region. The
hills shot up jaggedly from the plain around him--the fissures were rude
and steep--more like embrasures, blown out by sudden power from the
solid rock. Where the forest appeared, it was dense and
intricate--abounding in brush and underwood; where it was deficient, the
blasted heath chosen by the witches in Macbeth would have been no unfit
similitude.
Hopeless of human presence in this dreary region, the pedler yet rode
on, as if to dissipate the unpleasant thoughts, following upon his
frequent disappointment. Suddenly, however, a turn in the winding path
brought him in contact with a strange-looking figure, not more than five
feet in height, neither boy nor man, uncouthly habited, and seemingly
one to whom all converse but that of the trees and rocks, during his
whole life, had been unfamiliar.
The reader has already heard something of the Cherokee pony--it was upon
one of these animals he rode.
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