Not many miles from the Village of Peace rose an irregular chain of hills, the first faint indications of the grand Appalachian Mountain system.

These ridges were thickly wooded with white oak, poplar and hickory, among which a sentinel pine reared here and there its evergreen head.

There were clefts in the hills, passes lined by gray-stoned cliffs, below which ran clear brooks, tumbling over rocks in a hurry to meet their majestic father, the Ohio.
One of these valleys, so narrow that the sun seldom brightened the merry brook, made a deep cut in the rocks.

The head of this valley tapered until the walls nearly met; it seemed to lose itself in the shade of fern-faced cliffs, shadowed as they were by fir trees leaning over the brink, as though to search for secrets of the ravine.

So deep and dark and cool was this sequestered nook that here late summer had not dislodged early spring.