“And so you did.”
“But you know, Major, that Burbeck Lake had shrunk in the drought at the time of the survey, and if I'd followed the calls for the south of the lake, I'd had to build in four feet of water, so I drew back a mite—you bein' in Orleans, where I couldn't consult you, an' no time to be lost nohow, the river bein' then on the rise, an'——”
“Look here, fellow,” exclaimed Major Jeffrey, bringing the cue down on the table with a force that must have cut the cloth, “do you suppose that I have nothing better to do than to stand here to listen to your fool harangue?”
The anger and the drink and perhaps the consciousness of being in the wrong were all ablaze in the Major's eyes.
The two were alone; only the darkling shadows stood at tiptoe at the open windows, and still the flushed sky sent down a pervasive glow from above.
Hoxer swallowed hard, gulping down his own wrath and sense of injury. “Major,” he said blandly, trying a new deal, “I don't think you quite understand me.”
“Such a complicated proposition you are, to be sure!”
Hoxer disregarded the sarcasm, the contempt in the tone.
“I am not trying to rip up an old score, but you said at Winfield's store—at the store—that I did not build the cross levee on the surveyor's line; that I shortened it——”
“So you did.”