Which of the three Ampersands has the prior claim to the name, I cannot tell.  Philosophically speaking, the mountain ought to be regarded as the head of the family, because it was undoubtedly there before the others.  And the lake was probably the next on the ground, because the stream is its child.  But man is not strictly just in his nomenclature; and I conjecture that the little river, the last-born of the three, was the first to be christened Ampersand, and then gave its name to its parent and grand-parent.  It is such a crooked stream, so bent and curved and twisted upon itself, so fond of turning around unexpected corners and sweeping away in great circles from its direct course, that its first explorers christened it after the eccentric supernumerary of the alphabet which appears in the old spelling-books as &—­ and per se, and.

But in spite of this apparent subordination to the stream in the matter of a name, the mountain clearly asserts its natural authority.  It stands up boldly; and not only its own lake, but at least three others, the Lower Saranac, Round Lake, and Lonesome Pond, lie at its foot and acknowledge its lordship.  When the cloud is on its brow, they are dark.  When the sunlight strikes it, they smile.  Wherever you may go over the waters of these lakes you shall see Mount Ampersand looking down at you, and saying quietly, “This is my domain.”

I never look at a mountain which asserts itself in this fashion without desiring to stand on the top of it.  If one can reach the summit, one becomes a sharer in the dominion.  The difficulties in the way only add to the zest of the victory.  Every mountain is, rightly considered, an invitation to climb.  And as I was resting for a month one summer at Bartlett’s, Ampersand challenged me daily.

Did you know Bartlett’s in its palmy time?  It was the homeliest, quaintest, coziest place in the Adirondacks.  Away back in the ante-bellum days Virgil Bartlett had come into the woods, and built his house on the bank of the Saranac River, between the Upper Saranac and Round Lake.  It was then the only dwelling within a circle of many miles.  The deer and bear were in the majority.  At night one could sometimes hear the scream of the panther or the howling of wolves.  But soon the wilderness began to wear the traces of a conventional smile.  The desert blossomed a little—­if not as the rose, at least as the gilly-flower.  Fields were cleared, gardens planted; half a dozen log cabins were scattered along the river; and the old house, having grown slowly and somewhat irregularly for twenty years, came out, just before the time of which I write, in a modest coat of paint and a broad-brimmed piazza.  But Virgil himself, the creator of the oasis—­well known of hunters and fishermen, dreaded of lazy guides and quarrelsome lumbermen,—­“Virge,” the irascible, kind-hearted, indefatigable, was there no longer.  He had made his last clearing, and fought his last fight; done his last favour to a friend, and thrown his last adversary out of the tavern door.  His last log had gone down the river.  His camp-fire had burned out.  Peace to his ashes.  His wife, who had often played the part of Abigail toward travellers who had unconsciously incurred the old man’s mistrust, now reigned in his stead; and there was great abundance of maple-syrup on every man’s flapjack.