Thar's a blacksmith's shop and grocery at the crossroads, twenty miles further on, but it's got no name as I've heard on." The stranger's look of suspicion passed.

"Well," he said, in an imperative fashion, which, however, seemed as much the result of habit as the occasion, "I want a horse, and mighty quick, too." "H'ain't got any." "No horse?
How did you get to this place ?" Morse pointed to the slumbering oxen.
The stranger again stared curiously at him.

After a pause he said, with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile: "Pike--aren't you ?" Whether Morse did or did not know that this current California slang for a denizen of the bucolic West implied a certain contempt, he replied simply: "I'm from Pike County, Mizzouri." "Well," said the stranger, resuming his impatient manner, "you must beg or steal a horse from your neighbors." "Thar ain't any neighbor nearer than fifteen miles." "Then send fifteen miles! Stop." He opened his still clinging shirt and drew out a belt pouch, which he threw to Morse.

"There! there's two hundred and fifty dollars in that.

Now, I want a horse.