everybody came, and hence was the news of
the Bend noised abroad. Hoxer's business could scarcely recover from
this disparagement, and he had not doubted that Jeffrey would declare
that he had said nothing to justify this impression, and that he would
forthwith take occasion to clear it up. For were not Mr. Tompkins and
Judge Claris, both with a severe case of "high-water scare," ready to
contract for a joint cross levee for mutual protection from an unruly
bayou!

Therefore, with a sedulous effort, Hoxer maintained his composure when
the Major thundered again, "You tax me with making a false impression?"

"Not intentionally, Major, but----"

"And who are you to judge of my motives? Told a lie by accident, did I?
Begone, sir, or I'll break your head with this billiard cue!"

He had reached the limit as he brandished the cue. He was still agile,
vigorous, and it was scarcely possible that Hoxer could escape the blow.
He dreaded the indignity indeed more than the hurt.

"If you strike me," he declared in a single breath, between his set
teeth, "before God, I'll shoot you with your own pistol!"

It seemed a fatality that a pair in their open case should have been
lying on the sill of the window, where their owner had just been
cleaning and oiling them. Hoxer, of course, had no certainty that they
were loaded, but the change in Jeffrey's expression proclaimed it. He
was sober enough now--the shock was all sufficient--as he sprang to the
case. The younger man was the quicker. He had one of the pistols in his
hand before Jeffrey could level the other that he had snatched. Quicker
to fire, too, for the weapon in Jeffrey's hand was discharged in his
latest impulse of action after he fell to the floor, the blood
gushing from a wound that crimsoned all the delicate whiteness of his
shirt-front and bedabbled his snowy hair and beard.

This was the moment, the signal, fatal, final moment, that the
levee contractor had come to meet, that placed the period to his own
existence. He lived no longer, Hoxer felt. He did not recognize as his
own a single action hereafter, a single mental impulse. It was something
else, standing here in the red gloaming--some foreign entity, cogently
reasoning, swiftly acting. Self-defense--was it? And who would believe
that? Had he found justice so alert to redress his wrongs, even in a
little matter, that he must needs risk his neck upon it? This Thing that
was not himself--no, never more!--had t