possessed five dollars, and had
not been able to pay the poor Cincinnati engraver who made the notes.
The merchants of Little Rock, who had set up the bank, were the usual
purchasers of the produce from the farmer; but the credit of the bank
was so bad, that they were obliged to offer three dollars in their notes
for a bushel of wheat, which, in New York, commanded only eighty-four
cents in specie.

The farmers, however, were as sharp as the merchants, and, compelled to
deal with them, they hit upon a good plan. The principal landholders of
every county assembled, and agreed that they would also have a farmer's
bank, and a few months afterwards the country was inundated with notes
of six-and-a-quarter, twelve-and-a-half, twenty-five, and fifty cents,
with the following inscription: "We, the freeholders and farmers of such
county, promise to pay (so much) in Real Estate Bank of Arkansas notes,
but not under the sum of five dollars."

The bankers were caught in their own snares. They were obliged to
accept the "shin plasters" for the goods in their stores, with the
pleasing perspective of being paid back with their own notes, which made
their faces as doleful as the apothecary who was obliged to swallow his
own pills.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

From Batesville to the southern Missouri border, the road continues for
a hundred miles, through a dreary solitude of rocky mountains and pine
forests, full of snakes and a variety of game, but without the smallest
vestige of civilisation. There is not a single blade of grass to be
found, except in the hollows, and these are too swampy for a horse to
venture upon. Happily, small clear and limpid brooks are passed every
half-hour, and I had had the precaution to provide myself, at a farm,
with a large bag of maize for my horse. After all, we fared better than
we should have done at the log huts, and my faithful steed, at all
events, escaped the "ring." What the "ring" is, I will explain to the
reader.

In these countries, it always requires a whole day's smart riding to go
from one farm to another; and when the traveller is a "raw trotter" or a
"green one" (Arkansas denomination for a stranger), the host employs all
his cunning to ascertain if his guest has any money, as, if so, his
object is to detain him as long as he can. To gain this information,
although there are always at home half-a-dozen strong boys to take the
horses, he sends a pretty girl (a daughter, or a n