He did not seem inclined to further talk, and I too was silent. But I found employment for my eyes. We were descending the first slopes of the valley, and it lay before us a welcome oasis in the weary wilderness of mountains.
It must have been several miles in length and a good mile or more across. Down the centre of it flowed a creek of clear, cool water, almost big enough to call itself a river, and the thickness of the tree-trunks and the long grass browned by the autumn breath showed the fertility of the soil. Through the trees, which still retained much of their foliage, the corners of house-roofs appeared. There are many such secluded and warm little valleys in the Alleghanies, and I saw no occasion for surprise. In truth, what I saw was most welcome: it indicated the comfort of which I stood in need.
"I haven't asked you your name," said my host, suddenly.
"Arthur West," I replied.
"I would infer from your accent that you are a Northerner, a Yankee," he said, looking at me closely, and in a way I did not quite understand.
"You are right on the first point, but not on the second," I replied. "I am a Northerner, but not a Yankee. I am not from New England, but from New York City."
"It's all the same," he replied, frowning. "You're a Yankee, and I knew it from the first. We call the people of all the Northern States Yankees."
"Have it so," I replied, with a laugh. "But abroad they call us all Yankees, whether from the Northern or the Southern States."
"Luckily I never go abroad," he replied, frowning still more deeply. "You have not asked me my own name," he continued.