“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.