



Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)









                  THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN

                       CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK




                      THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE
                               MOUNTAIN

                          AND OTHER STORIES

                                  BY

                       CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK


                         BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
                    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
                                 1895




                           Copyright, 1895,
                         BY MARY N. MURFREE.

                        _All rights reserved._

          _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._

           Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




                              CONTENTS.


                                                          PAGE
        THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN                   1
        TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON AT THE COUNTY FAIR          165
        THE CASTING VOTE                                   200




                  THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN.


I.

The beetling crags that hang here and there above the gorge hold in
their rugged rock sculpture no facial similitudes, no suggestions. The
jagged outlines of shelving bluffs delineate no gigantic profile
against the sky beyond. One might seek far and near, and scan the vast
<DW72> with alert and expectant gaze, and view naught of the semblance
that from time immemorial has given the mountain its name. Yet the
imagination needs but scant aid when suddenly the elusive simulacrum
is revealed to the eye. In a certain slant of the diurnal light, even
on bright nights at the