276 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
chance acquaintance a good turn, when the latter was 
about to sail for England in 1826.5 Nolte, said 
Audubon, 
was mounted on a superb horse, for which he had paid three 
hundred dollars, and a servant on horseback led another as a 
change. I was then an utter stranger to him, and when I 
approached and praised his horse, he not very courteously ob- 
served that he wished I had as good a one. Finding that he was 
going to Bedford to spend the night, I asked him what hour he 
would get there: “Just soon enough to have some trouts ready 
for our supper, provided you will join when you get there.” 
I almost imagined that Barro understood our conversation; 
he pricked up his ears, and lengthened his pace, on which Mr. 
Nolte caracolled his horse, and then put him to quick trot, but 
all in vain; for I reached the hotel nearly a quarter of an hour 
before him, ordered the trouts, saw to the putting away of my 
good horse, and stood ready at the door to welcome my com- 
panion. From that day to this Vincent Nolte has been a friend 
to me. 
Audubon added that they rode together as far as 
Shippingport, now a part of Louisville, where his 
brother-in-law, Nicholas Berthoud, was then living. 
We shall now follow the equally circumstantial but 
widely divergent account of this meeting and the sub- 
sequent journey as given by the other traveler. Nolte 
had sailed from Liverpool in September, 1811, and 
landed in New York after a perilous voyage of forty- 
eight days. He had no servant, but was accompanied 
by a young Englishman, named Edward Hollander, 
whom he had engaged in a business capacity while in 
London and with whom he was making his way to New 
Orleans. Hollander had been sent in advance to Pitts- 
°See Chapter XXI, p. 352. 
