“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 git supper—or dinner, I don't jist ree-collect which.”
It had been three years since our friend had boarded at Dutton's house. There was no doubt that the man was not living at his old place now. My wife and I now agreed that it was very foolish in us to come so far without making more particular inquiries. But we had had an idea that a man who had a place like Dutton's tavern would live there always.
“What are ye goin' to do?” asked the driver, very much interested, for it was not every day that he had passengers who had lost their destination. “Ye might go on to Lowry's. He takes boarders sometimes.”
But Lowry's did not attract us. An ordinary country-tavern, where stage-passengers took supper, was not what we came so far to find.