“To Florence in Alabama,” answered Richards, “and thence down the Mississippi.”
“Ah, fine city, Florence! such as one only finds in this country. Ain’t it now? And a good market, too. Talkin’ of that, what’s the price of flour in the north? You’re come from thereaway, I guess. I did hear it was six and four levies, and Injun corn five and a fip—butter three fips.”
“Are you mad?” cried I, losing all patience, and unconsciously raising my whip as I spoke—“are you stark staring mad, to keep us talking here about flour and butter, and fips and levies, while the rain is falling by bucketsfull?”
“Hallo, stranger!” cried the man, raising himself for the first time out of his lounging position on the saddle. “Guess you’re gettin’ wolfish. I’m for you—stick, fist, or whiphandle, rifle or bowie-knife. Should like to see the man as could leather Isaac Shifty!”
“The road, the road, Mister Isaac Shifty!” interrupted friend Richards in a conciliating tone. There was another long pause.
“I guess you’re traders,” said the fiend at last.
“No, man.”
“And what may you be, then?”
Our answer was followed by another long inspection of our persons and physiognomies. He gazed at us for a couple of minutes or more, examining us from head to foot; at last he spoke.
“And so you’ve a mind to go down the Mississippi?”