ent of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and
breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it. It was
$1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents for each
meal and lodging.

Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel
Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next
available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and turning
out to be twenty-two, and a rough road. There is a little settlement
about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had the company of
the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl. Neither she nor
any other people we encountered had any dialect or local peculiarity of
speech. Indeed, those we encountered that morning had nothing in manner
or accent to distinguish them. The novelists had led us to expect
something different; and the modest and pretty young lady with frank and
open blue eyes, who wore gloves and used the common English speech, had
never figured in the fiction of the region. Cherished illusions vanish
often on near approach. The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note,
except the occasional use of "hit" for "it."

The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the thermometer
mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of the way, the
ride became tedious before we reached the summit. On the summit is the
dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in these parts. We stopped
at the house for a glass of milk; the colonel was absent, and while the
woman in charge went after it, we sat on the veranda and conversed with
a young lady, tall, gent, well favored, and communicative, who leaned in
the doorway.

"Yes, this house stands on the line. Where you sit, you are in
Tennessee; I'm in North Carolina."

"Do you live here?"

"Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's. I live over
the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville. I thought I'd be where
I could step into North Carolina easy."

"How's that?"

"Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about
some pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into
a little difficulty,--and I did n't want to. I never has no difficulty
with nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing against
nobody, and I reckon nobody has nothing against me."

"Did you come alone?"

"Why, of course. I come across the mountain by a path through the woods.
That's nothi