"Good-afternoon," he called, having recourse to his well-tried form of greeting. "Can you tell me how far it is to Poetical?" The man addressed half turned, disclosing a thin and delicate face to Steering. Then he reined his horse in gently. "Good-evening, sair. Is it that you inquire to Poetical? It is a vair' long five miles f'm here, sair." Steering rode up beside the man, more and more pleased, regarding and analysing. The man's hickory shirt, his warped boots, his blue jean trousers, his heavy buskins were mean and earth-stained, but inherent in the quality of his low, musical voice and courteous manner was an intangible suggestion of something different, some bigger and happier past, to which, go where he would and clothe himself as he might, voice and manner had remained true. "I wonder," said Steering, almost sighing, "if you will mind a little of my company. The road is terribly lonely, sir. The country is terribly lonely in fact." "Yes, sair, a tr-r-ue word that. It is lonely. But sair, what will you of this particulaire portion? It is vair' yong in the Tigmores. It cannot be populate' in a day, a year. You, sair, come from the East, hein? Sair, relativement, effort against effort, they have not done as much in the East in feefty years as we have done in the Southwest in twenty,--believe that, sair." It was that same feeling for the State, that quick, leaping passion of nativity that Steering had thus far found in every Missourian with whom he had come in contact. "You are a Missourian, I see," said Steering, to keep his companion talking along the line of this enlivening enthusiasm. "Indeed, sair, yes. From that Saint Louis--Francois Placide DeLassus Bernique, at your service." "Thank you. My name is Steering, from New York, if you please, but very deeply interested in Missouri just now, sir." From that on they made easy progress into acquaintance. Bernique proved talkative, full of anecdotes about Missouri's past, and full of belief in her future. In his rich loquacity he roamed the history of the State painstakingly for the edification of Steering, as one who stood at Missouri's gates, inquiring of her true inwardness. He told Missouri's history back to Spain and France, forward to unspeakable splendour. He was intelligent, naive, unusual. Steering, responsive to the attraction that was by and by to hold them strongly together, listened delightedly.