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Updated: June 8, 2025
Hoxer was glad that he was due and overdue to be gone from the locality. He felt that he could scarcely breathe freely again till he had joined the gang of Irish ditchers now establishing themselves in a new camp in the adjoining county, where the high stage of the river gave him employment in fighting water. He made up his mind, however, that he would not take the train thither.
This was one of those frequent crescent-shaped lakes peculiar to the region; sometimes, miles in extent, the lacustrine contour is not discernible to the glance; here the broad expanse seemed as if the body of water were circular and perhaps three miles in diameter. Suddenly Hoxer heard the sound that had baffled him hitherto heard it again and oh, horrible! recognized it at last!
"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.
They tell me 't wuz more'n dangerous to fire the brake when the woods is so uncommon dry. I dunno what we would do here in the bottom with a forest fire." "Pretty big blaze now, sure's ye're born," Hoxer replied casually, and so the matter passed.
The acquaintance had taken the little animal up on his knee and was examining into his condition. "Gee! how did he get so footsore?" "Following me around, I reckon," Hoxer hazarded.
Tompkins and Judge Claris, both with a severe case of "high-water scare," ready to contract for a joint cross levee for mutual protection from an unruly bayou! Therefore, with a sedulous effort, Hoxer maintained his composure when the Major thundered again, "You tax me with making a false impression?" "Not intentionally, Major, but " "And who are you to judge of my motives?
Hoxer had not waited for the light. Deriving a certain strength, a certain triumph, from the obvious fact that the end was not yet, he contrived in that darkest hour before the dawn to pull himself into a sitting posture, then to creep out to the shore.
A mere moment seems an inconsiderable factor in life only its multiplication attaining importance and signifying time. It could never have occurred to Walter Hoxer that all his years of labor, the aggregation of the material values of industry, experience, skill, integrity, could be nullified by this minimum unit of space as sudden, as potent, as destructive, as a stroke of lightning.
In the darksome shadows, further and further from the spot where he had entered the lake, Hoxer toiled along the margin, sometimes pausing to listen for had he heard aught or naught? as long as his strength would suffice. Then amidst the miry débris of last summer's growths beneath the recent inundation he sank down in the darkness, the dog exhausted in his arms.
Nevertheless, he made no secret of having been abroad when an acquaintance came up the road and paused for an exchange of the news of the day. "But what makes ye look so durned peaked?" he broke off, gazing at Hoxer in surprise. Hoxer was astonished at his own composure as he replied: "Out all night. I was in the swamp with the posse." "See the fire!
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