o settle
this matter before starting, but I am not at all sure that it would have
been so. We were going to this tavern, and did not wish to go anywhere
else. If people did not know where it was, it would be well for us to
go and look for it. We knew the road that it was on, and the locality in
which it was to be found.

Still, it was somewhat strange that a stage-driver, passing along
the road every week-day,--one day one way, and the next the other
way,--should not know a public-house like Dutton's.

"If I remember rightly," I said, "the stage used to stop there for the
passengers to take supper."

"Well, then, it aint on this side o' the ridge," said the driver; "we
stop for supper, about a quarter of a mile on the other side, at Pete
Lowry's. Perhaps Dutton used to keep that place. Was it called the
'Ridge House'?"

I did not remember the name of the house, but I knew very well that it
was not on the other side of the ridge.

"Then," said the driver, "I'm sure I don't know where it is. But I've
only been on the road about a year, and your man may 'a' moved away
afore I come. But there aint no tavern this side the ridge, arter ye
leave Delhi, and, that's nowhere's nigh the ridge."

There were a couple of farmers who were sitting by the driver, and who
had listened with considerable interest to this conversation. Presently,
one of them turned around to me and said:

"Is it Dave Dutton ye're askin' about?"

"Yes," I replied, "that's his name."

"Well, I think he's dead," said he.

At this, I began to feel uneasy, and I could see that my wife shared my
trouble.

Then the other farmer spoke up.

"I don't believe he's dead, Hiram," said he to his companion "I heered
of him this spring. He's got a sheep-farm on the other side o' the
mountain, and he's a livin' there. That's what I heered, at any rate.
But he don't live on this road any more," he continued, turning to us.
"He used to keep tavern on this road, and the stages did used to stop
fur supper--or else dinner, I don't jist ree-collect which. But he don't
keep tavern on this road no more."

"Of course not," said his companion, "if he's a livin' over the
mountain. But I b'lieve he's dead."

I asked the other farmer if he knew how long it had been since Dutton
had left this part of the country.

"I don't know fur certain," he said, "but I know he was keeping tavern
here two year' ago, this fall, fur I came along here, myself, and
stopped there to g