Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone carse swells into the shady hills, clad largely with pine, that form the long glacis of the Alleghanies.  These hills are peopled principally by a hardy race not unlike the German woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of them share, as their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English spelling and pronunciation, denote.  They inherit, likewise, their fancy for the rifle.  Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand’s supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it supplies them materially with sport and subsistence.  Their land, where arable at all, being unproductive as a rule, wood-chopping is their most profitable branch of farming.  A score or two of them drive into town daily, each with his four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood.  The pile is frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow intervales in extraordinary numbers.  We have seen three sledge-loads of hares—­say two thousand in all—­on the street of a winter’s day.

This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury the town often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to the cash receipts; although it must not be inferred from this that the hillmen are noted for a weakness in that direction.  Generally, they are as sober as they are hard-working, independent and honest.  The few who do take kindly to strong waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure that the enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down..  One little old hook-nosed fellow was an every-day feature of the road for fifteen or twenty years.  In that entire period he was rarely, if once, seen to go out sober.  He drove but two horses, which were apparently coeval with himself.  Long practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate themselves to their master’s failing.  The saddle-horse adapted his movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling and pitching aloft.  On more than one occasion the woodman was found lying in the road by the side or under the feet of his faithful and motionless team.  Poor old Jack! thou hast “gone under,” deeper than that, at last, leaving behind thee the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of corn whisky.

The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern “pike,” is the scene of many a turkey-shoot.  Between the hill and the road, at the foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, room enough has been scooped out, partly by the rains and partly by the pick, for the house, offices and microscopic yard decorated with hollyhocks and larkspurs.  Across the highway stands a capacious barn, with open space for wagons, and between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow meadow, whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the caravanserai.  The open space flanking the house and road is the rifle-course, so