Chester found the bed conducive to dreams, in which he was happy beyond the happiness of duke or king, dreams of Blennerhassett's island in May, and of wandering with a wingless Yankee angel in that earthly Paradise. Next morning, in payment for lodging and breakfast, he offered a silver dollar. "That's too much," said Chin. "Here, Joel, chop this coin. I must give you the change in sharp-shanks. Will you have it in quarters or eighths?" "In whatever form you please." "Then make it quarters, Joel," directed the landlord, tossing the dollar to a negro, who neatly cut the piece into four equal segments, one of which was handed back to the departing guest. Arlington proceeded southward toward Natchez, following the road over which Burr had travelled toilsomely nearly two years before. Though warned not to undertake the journey alone, our hero, like James Fitz James, chose to trace a dangerous path only because it was "dangerous known." Road, properly so called, none had yet been opened through the wilderness stretching from Tennessee to lower Louisiana, and spreading eastward from the Mississippi. The route led the traveller along an old trail, over sandy spaces shadowed by melancholy pines, beside stagnant lagoons, across sluggish streams, and into cypress swamps, the lurking-place of reptiles, the dreary haunt of bats and vultures. The road, at best, was an indifferent bridle path, and at worst, a blind labyrinth of seldom trodden ways in the woods. Arlington carried in his saddle-bags a supply of bread and cheese, and he kept ready primed, in holster at his pommel, a brace of big pistols. On the evening of the second day after entering the piny woods of Mississippi, he came upon a party of Creeks and Cherokees. They were friendly; their chief offered the hospitality of the camp, venison to eat and a buffalo hide to sleep on. These mild savages spoke a few English words, and they had partially adopted the customs of white people. The men wore an upper garment, like a shirt, and, about their loins a girdle of blue cloth a yard and a half long. Their legs were bare, their feet shod with moccasins of stag-skin. They were shorn of all hair except a grotesque tuft on top of the head. To enhance their masculine beauty, they sported nose-rings and painted their faces red, blue or black. The dress of the squaws consisted of a shirt, a short petticoat, and ornamental gaiters. Not one of them suffered a ring in her nose or paint on her cheeks, and all seemed proud of their hair. A dusky beauty, the chief's daughter, insisted on picketing and feeding Arlington's horse. On the next morning, before quitting the camp, the young man gallantly gave her a silk scarf, a present which all the other Indians, from the chief down, envied her.