It was true. Only a few weeks before, gaunt, footsore, and ragged, tramping the cross-ties yonder where the railway comes from the eastward, curving into view out of that deep green and gray defile, ’Thanase had come into this valley. So short a time before, because almost on his start homeward illness had halted him by the way and held him long in arrest. But at length he had reached the valley, and had lingered here for days; for it happened that a man in bought clothing was there just then, roaming around and hammering pieces off the rocks, who gave ’Thanase the chance to earn a little something from him, with which the hard-marched wanderer might take the train instead of the cross-ties for as far as the pittance would carry him.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE QUEST ENDED.
The next sunrise saw Bonaventure, with a new energy in his step, journeying back the way he had come. And so anew the weeks wore by. Once more the streams ran southward, and the landscapes opened wide and fertile.
“Sir,—pardon your stopping,—in what State should I find myself at the present?”
The person inquired of looked blank, examined the questioner from head to foot, and replied:
“In what—oh! I understand; yes. What State—Alabama, yes, Alabama. You must excuse me, I didn’t understand you at first. Yes, this is Alabama.”
“Thank you, sir. Have you seen anywhere, coming back from the war, a young man named ’Thanase Beausoleil?”