Eddring saw and heard thus much, but presently he sank half- unconscious, not knowing the puzzle of the shot which had struck him here so far toward the interior of the house. After a time the horror of it all drew to its climax and passed on. Buckner, the storekeeper, slipped down to the railroad station and set going an imperative clicking on the wire. Two hours later there came a special train, whose appearance put an end to the conflict. Dawn found the engine fuming at the station-house, and dawn saw the Big House still standing, charred a little at one corner, near which lay the body of the unfortunate who had sought to apply the brand. Eddring, still faint and dizzy, but not seriously hurt, sat at a little table opposite Colonel Blount, who, himself gray and gaunt, had paused for a time in his uneasy walk about the premises. A mocking-bird on the trellis without the door trilled its song high and sweet, as though the coming sunshine could reveal nothing of that which had been there.
Chapter IX. ON ITS MAJESTY'S SERVICE
John Eddring, one morning, a month, or so after the Big House battle, sat in the offices devoted to the use of the division claim agent of the Y. Y. lines, whose headquarters were situated in a squat building around which went on the scattered industries of the city known as the industrial capital of a certain region of the South. Beyond these dingy confines might have been seen other structures yet more squat and dreary, from which issued the lines of iron rails which led out into the South, rails which even here paralleled the shores of the great river, as though dependent upon it for maintenance and guidance. The mighty flood, unmindful, swept toward the South, its tawny mane far out in midstream wrinkled by the breath of an up-stream air.
Beyond the nearest bend there arose, above the cover of the gray forest, the dense smoke of a steamer, and near at hand there came now and again the coughing roar of the whistles of yet other river boats. Slow smoke issued also from steamers tied up at the levee, where, under low wooden canopies, lay piles and rows of brown-cased cotton bales, continually increased in number by other bales brought up in long drays, each drawn by a single mule. Above the hot wharves rose the slope of close stone riprapping, fence against Father Messasebe, who now and then, in spirit of sport or of forgetfulness, reached out for his immemorial tribute of the soil. The sun was reflected from this wall down on the depot building and the wharf floor beyond. Across the water came the strumming of a banjo, and the low note of singing also arose from the rooms where workmen shuffled about with truck and hook, shifting the cotton bales. An inspector, almost the only white man at the wharf, moved slowly from bale to bale, ripping the covers with his knife and probing with his cotton auger into the middle of each bale to test its quality. Mules dozed about with lopping ears. Nowhere was there haste; neither here nor on the street; nor in the railway offices beyond, where sat John Eddring, agent of the personal injury department of this southern railway.
The room was not attractive, with its few chairs, its rows of letter files, its desks and copying presses. The table at which Eddring sat was worn and lacking in polish. Upon the wall hung a map showing the divers lines of the Y. V. railroad; a chart depicting the street crossings in the city of New Orleans; an engineer's elevation of a bridge somewhere on the line. Severely professional were these surroundings; as was indeed the central figure in the room, who now sat at his desk opening the morning mail. He looked up presently as there came a knock at the door, and soon was on his feet, hat in hand; for the first caller of the day proved to be a lady. Apparently she was an acquaintance of the claim agent, who addressed her by name.
"Come in, Mrs. Wilson," he said pleasantly.
Mrs. Wilson, just arrived from a small town down the railroad, had brought with her her sister, her mother and four children, not to mention a neighbor who had come along to do a little shopping. Eddring employed himself in getting a sufficient number of chairs for this little body of visitors. Inquiries as to the health of himself and his family ensued, reciprocated politely by Eddring, who asked after Mrs. Wilson's kith and kin and the leading citizens of her town. These preliminaries were long, but the claim agent was apparently well acquainted with them and regarded them as necessary.
"Well, now, Mr. Eddring," said Mrs. Wilson, "I've come in heah this mawnin' to see you about ouah hawse. You know ouah Molly hawse got kilt down at the depot two weeks ago by the railroad kyahs. I declare, I felt so bad I sat down and cried; I couldn't get supper that day. We was so much attached to Molly — why, Mr. Eddring, you don't know how bad we-all did feel about that hawse. It don't seem right to us nohow."
"No, things do go wrong sometimes, Mrs. Wilson," said Eddring, soothingly. "Now, I know that horse. Mr. Wilson drove me behind her the other day when I was down at your town. Good horse. A little old and a trifle lame, if I remember right." He smiled pleasantly.
"Lame! Why, Molly never was lame a day in her whole life. She never did have no lameness at all, unless it was a sort of hitch now and then like, but you couldn't call it right lame. Now, Mr. Wilson didn't come up. I tol' him you was a mighty nice man and you wouldn't let a lady get the worst of a business deal. I thought we could talk it over and you would do about what was right. Now, two hundred dollars — "
"Two hundred dollars! Why, my dear madam, you know I can get you another horse — "
"Get us another hawse like Molly! I'd like to know where you can get a hawse that's been in ouah family twenty years for any two hundred dollars! Why, Mr. Eddring, I always thought you was a fair-minded gentleman."
"Don't call me that, don't call me a gentleman," said Eddring, "and don't you call me fair-minded! But now, just look here. We didn't ask that Molly horse to get on our track. We didn't want to kill her, now, did we? All we wanted was to steam up there to the platform, and put off some groceries and let off a few passengers. We didn't want to kill anybody's horse. Now, I know Molly has been in your family a long time; a good horse, I don't deny it. We couldn't make it right with you if we paid you a thousand dollars; so just let's forget it and try to be friends. Let me give you a check for forty dollars."
"Forty dollars!"
"Now, then, Mrs. Wilson, this is not to be for Molly, it's just trying to be friendly. I want to feel free to come down and sit at your table and look you all in the face."
"I don't see how you could do that, and only pay me forty dollars,
Mr. Eddring." A grieved look sat on the lady's face.
"Well, now, I reckon I could, if I just saw you dressed up in a new gown that I saw in the window down at the store this morning. I reckon I could, if I saw hanging in your hall that hat that I saw this morning, down on the street."
"Do you think forty dollars would buy them, Mr. Eddring?" asked Mrs.
Wilson.
"Surely it would, and leave you enough to pay for your whole trip up here, and buy some things for the children besides. Now, look here, I don't want you to think I'm offering that to pay you for Molly. I ain't paying for any horses for Mr. Wilson. He is a gentleman that don't need ask favors of anybody, and he's going to pick out his own horses. You tell him I said he was a good judge of a horse. I want you to tell him I scorn to offer you money for this here Molly horse of yours — I scorn to do so. Mr. Wilson will make more than two hundred dollars in a day or so, the way cotton is going up this week. I just throw in this forty dollars — here is the voucher for it — so as to show you I am your friend. Now, if you ever want any shopping done up here any time; Mrs. Wilson, just write to me and I'll do the best I can. I'd go right down to the store with you to look at that dress, if it wasn't that I have to be right busy here for a while. Good-by, Mrs. Wilson, good-by, madam. Good-by to you all. I am glad you all came in. Good-by, little