"I am well, right well," said Blount, "Just came up to see about a little cotton. It looks like twelve cents before long."
"Well, with cotton at twelve cents you ought not to have any quarrel with the world, Colonel Blount."
"Well, now," replied Blount, "I need about everything I can get to put my place in order again. It's some months now since we had our little war down there, and I haven't got together half the hands I need yet. Some of my people cleaned out and we never did hear anything more of them. We've got plenty of niggers in jail down there yet; but that ain't the way we want it. We want 'em to get out of jail and into the fields at work. They'd rather stay in jail. They get as much to eat, and more time to rest."
"Well, they did raise trouble that time, didn't they?" said Eddring. "What do you suppose started them, Colonel? Who was it put them up to do it?" Blount shook his head.
"That's the puzzle," said he. "It was some one with brains; and not the kind of brains that grows under kinky hair, either."
The two men sat silent for a time. "Oh, by the way," said Blount, at length, "I was just going to say I brought up Mrs. Ellison and Miss Lady with me this morning. I left them over at the hotel right now. Do you know, Eddring, that girl has grown up to be a plumb beauty! She's handsome enough to just scare you. Why, I never did know there was so many young men in this whole town before that were acquainted with me. Looks like she was a public menace to business on the streets. Pine girl. And just as good as she's handsome!"
Eddring felt the blood surge up into his face, but he made no comment. He knew that the one unsafe thing for him to do was to see again this same Miss Lady, and yet against this decision all the riotous blood of his heart surged out in protest. He took a swift turn to the window.
"By Jove, Colonel," he cried, "out there goes that fellow Jim Hargis, from over near Jewelville. He's got that brag dog of his along."
"Dog? What dog?" cried Blount.
"There, that's the one," said Eddring, pointing out a man passing by, who was accompanied by a pepper-and-salt foxhound. "Do you see that dog? Well, Jim Hargis says that's the coldest-nosed hound ever run a trail, and he's got five hundred dollars to bet his equal don't live in the South."