re, about noon, he came upon a lonely cabin whose owner had reached
home from the war only a day or two earlier.

There was an air of desolation and decay about the place, but knowing
the ways of the mountaineers the young man did not despair of securing
some food there. For even when the mountaineer is most prosperous his
fences are apt to be down, his roof out of repair, and all his
surroundings to wear the look of abandonment in despair.

Duncan began by asking for dinner for himself and his horse, and the
response was what he expected in that land of poverty-stricken but
always generous hospitality.

"Ain't got much to offer you, Cap'n'," said the owner, "but sich as it
is you're welcome."

Meanwhile he had given the horse a dozen ears of corn, saying:

"Reckon 't won't hurt him. He don't look 's if he'd been a feedin' any
too hearty an' I reckon a dozen ears won't founder him."

For dinner there was a scanty piece of bacon, boiled with wild mustard
plants for greens, and some pones of corn bread.

To Guilford Duncan, in his starving condition, this seemed a veritable
feast. The eating of it so far refreshed him that he cheerfully answered
all the questions put to him by his shirt-sleeved host.

It is a tradition in Virginia that nobody can ask so many questions as a
"Yankee," and yet there was never a people so insistently given to
asking questions of a purely and impertinently personal character as
were the Virginians of anything less than the higher and gentler class.
They questioned a guest, not so much because of any idle curiosity
concerning his affairs, as because of a friendly desire to manifest
interest in him and in what might concern him.

"What mout your name be, Cap'n?" the host began, as they sat at dinner.

"My name is Guilford Duncan," replied the young man. "But I am not a
Captain now. I'm only a very poor young man--greatly poorer than you
are, for at least you own a home and a little piece of the mountain top,
while I own no inch of God's earth or anything else except my horse, my
four pistols, my saddle and bridle and the clothes I wear."

"What's your plan? Goin' to settle in the mountings? They say there'll
be big money in 'stillin' whisky an' not a-payin' of the high tax on it.
It's a resky business, or will be, when the Yanks get their-selves
settled down into possession, like; but I kin see you're game fer resks,
an' ef you want a workin' pardner, I'm your man. There's a water pow