rses drew each wagon, manes and tails tied with bright galloon, and
harness hung with jingling bells. Whatever things the mountain folk
might trade with were in the wagons,--butter, flour, and dried meat,
skins of deer and bear, hemp, flaxseed, wax, ginseng, and maple sugar.
Other vehicles used the road, growing more numerous as the day wore into
the afternoon, and Richmond was no longer far away. Coach and chaise,
curricle and stick-chair, were encountered, and horsemen were frequent.

In 1790 men spoke when they passed; moreover, Rand and Gaudylock were
not entirely unknown. The giant figure of the one had been seen before
upon that road; the other was recognized as a very able scout, hunter,
and Indian trader, restless as quicksilver and daring beyond all reason.
Men hailed the two cheerily, and asked for the news from Albemarle, and
from Kentucky and the Mississippi.

"Mr. Jefferson is coming home," answered Rand; and "Spain is not so
black as she is painted," said the trader.

"We hear," quoth the gentleman addressed, "that the Kentuckians make
good Spanish subjects."

"Then you hear a damned lie," said Gaudylock imperturbably. "The boot's
on the other foot. Ten years from now a Kentuckian may rule in New
Orleans."

The gentleman laughed, settled back in his stick-chair, and spoke to his
horse. "Mr. Jefferson is in Richmond," he remarked to Rand, and vanished
in a cloud of dust.

The tobacco-cask and its guardians kept on by wood and stream,
plantation, tavern, forge, and mill, now with companions and now upon a
lonely road. At last, when the frogs were at vespers, and the wind had
died into an evening stillness, and the last rays of the sun were
staining the autumn foliage a yet deeper red, they came by way of Broad
Street into Richmond. The cask of bright leaf must be deposited at
Shockoe Warehouse; this they did, then as the stars were coming out,
they betook themselves to where, at the foot of Church Hill, the Bird in
Hand dispensed refreshment to man and beast.

CHAPTER II

MR. JEFFERSON

By ten of the Capitol clock Gideon Rand had sold his tobacco and
deposited the price in a well-filled wallet. "Eighteen shillings the
hundred," he said, with grim satisfaction. "And the casks I sent by
Mocket sold as well! Good leaf, good leaf! Tobacco pays, and learning
don't. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lewis Rand!"

Father and son came out from the cool, dark store, upon the unpaved
street, and