iminated the danger from back-water, which,
if aggregated from rainfall in low-lying swamps, would move up slowly
to inundate the arable lands. These were already ploughed to bed up for
cotton, and an overflow now would mean the loss of many thousands of
dollars to the submerged communities. The February rains had begun
in the upper country, with a persistency and volume that bade fair
to compensate for the long-continued drought, and thus the river was
already booming; the bayous that drew off a vast surplusage of its
waters were overcharged, and gradually would spread out in murky
shallows, heavily laden with river detritus, over the low grounds
bordering their course.

"This Jeffrey levee will hold," Hoxer said to himself, as once he
paused, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his red head,
his freckled, commonplace, square face lifted into a sort of dignity by
the light of expert capacity and intelligence in his bluff blue eyes. He
had been muttering to himself the details of its construction: so many
feet across the base in proportion to its height, the width of the
summit, the angle of the incline of its interior slope--the exterior
being invisible, having the Mississippi River standing against it. "A
fairly good levee, though an old one," he muttered. "I'll bet, though,
Major Jeffrey feels mightily like Noah when he looks at all that water
out there tearing through the country."

His face clouded at the mention of the name, and as he took the short
pipe from his month and stuck it into the pocket of his loose sack-coat
his tread lost a certain free elasticity that had characterized it
hitherto, and he trudged on doggedly. He had passed many acres of
ploughed lands, the road running between the fields and the levee. The
scene was all solitary; the sun had set, and night would presently be
coming on. As he turned in at the big white gate that opened on a long
avenue of oaks leading to the mansion house, he began to fear that his
visit might be ill-timed, and that a man of his station could not hope
for an audience so near the major's dinner-hour.

It was with definite relief that he heard the gentle impact of ivory
balls in the absolute quiet, and he remembered that a certain little
octagonal structure with a conical red roof, in the grounds, was a
billiard-room, for the sound betokened that he might find the owner of
the place here.

He expected to see a group of the Major's "quality friends" in t