who was the man on the sorrel horse, and where had he gone? Probably
the coat worked loose in crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had
gone down-stream. The number of probabilities was infinite, and each
more plausible than the others as it occurred to us. We inquired at
every house we had passed on the way, we questioned every one we met.
At length it began to seem improbable that any one would remember if
he had picked up a pocketbook that morning. This is just the sort of
thing that slips an untrained memory.

At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be
either or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence, and
a group of men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we
unfolded our misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a
sorrel horse. Yes, such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden
towards Bakersville. If he had found the pocket-book, we would
recover it. He was an honest man. It might, however, fall into
hands that would freeze to it.

Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in
the county who would keep it if they had picked it up. But the
assembly manifested the liveliest interest in the incident. One
suggested Toe River. Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any
road. But there was a chorus of desire expressed that we should find
it, and in this anxiety was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about
the honor of Mitchell County. It seemed too bad that a stranger
should go away with the impression that it was not safe to leave
money anywhere in it. We felt very much obliged for this genuine
sympathy, and we told them that if a pocket-book were lost in this
way on a Connecticut road, there would be felt no neighborhood
responsibility for it, and that nobody would take any interest in the