horses were not ours, that they were hired, made little impression on
him. All the way to Burnsville he kept referring to the subject of a
trade. The instinct of "swap" was strong in him. When we met a yoke of
steers, he turned round and bantered the owner for a trade. Our saddles
took his fancy. They were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one
of them would just suit him. He rode a small flat English pad, across
which was flung the United States mail pouch, apparently empty. He
dwelt upon the fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the
advantages that would accrue to us from the exchange. He did n't care
if they had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army
saddle. The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged
to a distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put
there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and the
owner would not part with it for money. But the mail-rider said he did
n't mind that. He would n't mind swapping his new saddle for my old one
and the rubber coat and leggings. Long before we reached the ford we
thought we would like to swap the guide, even at the risk of drowning.
The ford was passed, in due time, with no inconvenience save that of wet
feet, for the stream was breast high to the horses; but being broad and
swift and full of sunken rocks and slippery stones, and the crossing
tortuous, it is not a ford to be commended. There is a curious delusion
that a rider has in crossing a swift broad stream. It is that he is
rapidly drifting up-stream, while in fact the tendency of the horse is
to go with the current.

The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams
and the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped. The travelers
endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land. Not
much sold, he said. "There was one sale of a big piece last year; the
owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know what he got for
it."

All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one room,
chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only occasionally
thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like a cob house,
that served for a stable. Not much cultivation, except now and then
a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside, occasionally a few
apple-trees, and a peach-tree without f