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