"
The bankers were caught in their own snares. They were obliged to accept
the "shin plasters" for the goods in their stores, with the pleasing
perspective of being paid back with their own notes, which made their
faces as doleful as the apothecary who was obliged to swallow his
own pills.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
From Batesville to the southern Missouri border, the road continues for
a hundred miles through a dreary solitude of rocky mountains and pine
forests, full of snakes and a variety of game, but without the smallest
vestige of civilization. There is not a single blade of grass to be
found, except in the hollows, and these are too swampy for a horse to
venture upon. Happily, small clear and limpid brooks are passed every
half-hour, and I had had the precaution to provide myself, at a farm,
with a large bag of maize for my horse. After all, we fared better than
we should have done at the log huts, and my faithful steed, at all
events, escaped the "ring." What the "ring" is, I will explain to
the reader.
In these countries, it always requires a whole day's smart riding to go
from one farm to another; and when the traveller is a "raw trotter" or a
"green one" (Arkansas denomination for a stranger), the host employs all
his cunning to ascertain if his guest has any money, as, if so, his
object is to detain him as long as he can.
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