a splinter between his teeth. "It does look as if we had killed
about everything loose in the whole Delta during the last month or so."

"Are you on this railroad?" asked Blount suddenly.

"I reckon I'll have to admit that I am," said the other, smiling.

"Passenger agent, or something of that sort, I reckon? Well, let me tell
you, you change your road. Say, there was a man down below here last
week settling up claims--Bill! Ah-h, _Bill_! Where've you gone?"

"Yes," said Eddring, "it certainly did seem that when we built this road
every cow and every nigger, not to mention a lot of white folks, made a
bee-line straight for our right of way. Why, sir, it was a solid line of
cows and niggers from Memphis to New Orleans. How could you blame an
engineer if he run into something once in a while? He couldn't _help_
it."

"Yes. Now, do you know what this claim-settler, or this claim-agent man
did? Why, he paid a man down below here two stations--what do you think
he paid him for as fine a heifer as ever eat cane? Why, fifteen
dollars!"

"Fifteen dollars!"

"Yes, fifteen dollars."

"That looks like a heap of money for a heifer, doesn't it, Colonel
Blount?"

"A heap of money? Why, no. Heap of _money_? Why, what do you mean?"

"Heifers didn't bring that before the road came through. Why, you would
have had to drive that heifer twenty-five miles before you could get a
market, and then she wouldn't have brought over twelve dollars. Now,
fifteen dollars, seems to me, is about right."

"Well, let the heifer go. But there was a cow killed three miles below
here the other day. Neighbors of mine. I reckon that claim agent
wouldn't want to allow any more than fifteen dollars for Jim Bowles'
cow, neither."

"Maybe not."

"Well, never mind about the cow, either; but look here. A nigger lost
his wife down there, killed by these steam kyars--looks like the niggers
get _fascinated_ by them kyars. But here's Bill coming at last. Now, Mr.
Eddring, we'll just make a little julep. Tell me, how do you make a
julep, sir?"

Eddring hitched a little nearer on the board-pile. "Well, Colonel
Blount," said he, "in our family we used to have an old silver mug--sort
of plain mug, you know, few flowers around the edge of it--been in the
family for years. Now, you take a mug like that and let it lie in the
ice box all the time, and when you take it out, it's sort of got a white
frost all over it. Now, my old daddy, he would take this mug a