Besides the cedar-trees, there were sugar-maples and white birches; and the beautiful rock ferns grew all over the ledges in high waving tufts, almost as luxuriantly as if they were in the tropics; so that the spot, wild and fierce as it was, had great beauty.

Many of the fugitive slaves had built themselves huts here: some lived in the caves.

A few poor and vicious whites had joined them, intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen.

They were the terror of the neighborhood.

Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws.