"Which?"
"You got a living out of the farmers?"
"You bet."
Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain
marauder - on the right side. His attachment to the word "which"
prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be
only two trains of ideas running in his mind: one was the subject of
horses and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were
coming to, and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring
to excite our alarm. He returned to the ford from every other
conversational excursion, and after every silence.
"I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford.
Folks is carried away there. The Toe gits up sudden. There's been
right smart rain lately.
"If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take
your horses across. Mebbe you're used to fording? It's a pretty bad
ford for them as don't know it. But you'll get along if you mind
your eye. There's some rocks you'll have to look out for. But
you'll be all right if you follow me."
Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of
his ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure
in trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
attention to a trade. "This hoss of mine," he said, "is just the
kind of brute-beast you want for this country. Your hosses is too
heavy. How'll you swap for that one o' yourn?" The reiterated
assertion that the 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.
