“Hope I ain't crowding you,” said Mr. Bartlett. “Here, I'll make more room for you. Well sir, Benson's about the healthiest place I know of. When a man gets ready to die there, he has to move away to do it.”
“Who the hell's talking about dying?” demanded the stranger savagely. “There are plenty of graveyards where I came from.”
“There are plenty of graveyards everywhere; yes sir, you'd have to do a heap of travelling to get shut of them.” admitted Mr. Bartlett impartially.
“And all the thundering fools ain't buried yet,” said the stranger shortly.
Mr. Bartlett meditated on this apparently irrelevant remark in silence. He had found the stranger taciturn and sullen, or given to flashes of grim humour.
“Where's Landray's mill?” the latter now demanded, the glint of anger slowly fading from his eyes.
“See that clump of willows down yonder, to the right of the road? It's just back of them.”
“Who's running it?”
“Old General Landray's sons, Bush and Steve,” he spoke of them with easy familiarity.
“I see you know them,” said the stranger.