The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth of the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all.  They decided, on reflection, to join company with the mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and could pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.

The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker and full of endurance.  The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has nothing whatever to think of.  He had been in the war sixteen months, in Hugh White’s regiment,—­reckon you’ve heerd of him?

“Confederate?”

“Which?”

“Was he on the Union or Confederate side?”

“Oh, Union.”

“Were you in any engagements?”

“Which?”

“Did you have any fighting?”

“Not reg’lar.”

“What did you do?”

“Which?”

“What did you do in Hugh White’s regiment?”

“Oh, just cavorted round the mountains.”

“You lived on the country?”

“Which?”

“Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?”

“That’s about so.  Did n’t make much difference which side was round, the country got cleaned out.”

“Plunder seems to have been the object?”

“Which?”

“You got a living out of the farmers?”

“You bet.”

Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain marauder—­on the right side.  His attachment to the word “which” prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be only two trains of ideas running in his mind:  one was the subject of horses and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were coming to, and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring to excite our alarm.  He returned to the ford from every other conversational excursion, and after every silence.

“I do’ know’s there ’s any great danger; not if you know the ford.  Folks is carried away there.  The Toe gits up sudden.  There’s been right smart rain lately.

“If you’re afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I’ll take your horses across.  Mebbe you’re used to fording?  It’s a pretty bad ford for them as don’t know it.  But you’ll get along if you mind your eye.  There’s some rocks you’ll have to look out for.  But you’ll be all right if you follow me.”