"We don't need to suppose. There was the same thing happened to a
white family. Wife got killed--left three children."

"Oh, you mean that accident down at Shelby?"

"Yes, Mrs. Something-or-other, she was. Well, sir, damn me, if that
infernal claim agent didn't have the face to offer fifteen dollars
for her, too!"

"Looks almost like he played a fifteen dollar limit all the time,
doesn't it?" said Eddring.

"It certainly does. It ain't right."

"Well, now, I heard about that woman. She was a tall, thin creature,
with no liver left at all, and her chills came three times a week.
She wouldn't work; she was red-headed and had only one straight eye;
and as for a tongue--well, I only hope, Colonel Blount, that you and
I will never have a chance to meet anything like that. Of course, I
know she was killed. Her husband just hated her before she died, but
blame _me_, just as soon as she was _dead_, he loved her more than if
she was his sweetheart all over again. Now, that's how it goes. Say, I
want to tell you, Colonel Blount, this road is plumb beneficent, if
only for the fact that it develops human affection in such a way as
this. Fifteen dollars! Why, I tell you, sir, fifteen dollars was more
than enough for that woman!" He turned indignantly on the board-pile.

"I reckon," said Colonel Blount, "that you would say that about my
neighbor Jim Bowles' cow?"