"Oh! you have some object then in going by the road? Perhaps commercial?"
My fellow-traveler's eye rested for a moment on my valise, but evidently unsatisfied. It did not look much like the pack of a peddler.
"No," I said, in answer to his interrogatory. "Unfortunately for me, I am not able to offer such a substantial excuse for my journey."
"Well," he rejoined, "I know it's common enough to travel on horseback across to Memphis, when the water is low in the Cumberland, and there may not be a boat; but to ride all the way to New Orleans—that's a different affair. Do you really mean it?"
"I do."
"Excuse me for appearing inquisitive. It's a privilege we Western people assume to ourselves. I only asked because it seems so odd for any one to undertake such a tedious journey."
"You are perfectly welcome to know my reason for undertaking it. I have made the up-journey from New Orleans to Nashville by boat, and for all I have learnt by it, I might as well have been stopping at the "St. Charles Hotel," at one end, or the "Nashville Inn" at the other. My object is to see something of the interior of your country; and this is not to be accomplished on board a noisy steamboat."
"Ah! Now I perceive. No doubt you are right. As a stranger to our country—"
"How can you tell that?" I asked, abruptly interrupting him.
"Oh! that is easily told," was the prompt reply. "For instance, the odd article strapped on the crupper of your saddle."