"If levee-cutters started this flood up in Tullahoma, and the planters ever get hold of them, I shouldn't think it would be exactly healthy," added Wilson. "This means everything under water, clean to the Yazoo. Looks like those fellows in there had had their share of trouble lately." "Nothing but trouble for four or five years," said Eddring. "Black politics." "Yes," said Wilson, sighing, "when Mr. Nigger gets the notion that he'd like to be school superintendent or county treasurer, or something of the kind, he's goin' to be mighty willin' to lay down the hoe. I even think he would be willin', if he was asked, to let the white man do the hoein', and him do the governin'." Eddring made no answer, but gazed steadily out over the racing seas of tawny water. "At any rate, we'll soon be there now," said he at length. "How can I pay you, Captain Wilson? How can I thank you?" "Well," said Wilson, thoughtfully, "you might give me your note, the way a friend of mine, Judge Osborn, down at New Orleans, did once. That was in the war, you know, and Judge Osborn was a Confederate colonel. He had to take passage on a river boat, and they got hung up somewhere, and he and the Cap'n played a little poker for several days. Colonel couldn't win nohow. At the end of the week he owed the Cap'n four hundred thousand dollars--Confederate money, of course. At last says he, 'See here, Cap'n, now I owe you this four hundred thousand dollars, and I can't pay you by about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, what am I going to go? Shall I give you my note?' The Cap'n he looks at the Colonel, and says he, 'Ain't I treated you all right, Colonel? Ain't I fed you good enough? Did I ever do you any harm?' The Colonel 'lowed he had been treated all right. 'Well, then,' says the Cap'n, 'what have you got against me? What do you want to give me your note for? Take everything I've got; take my boat, but please, sir, don't give me your note.' Now that's the way I feel. I don't want your thanks, and I don't want your note." Eddring laughed frankly. "Well, Captain," said he, "let it go that way. I won't give you my note, nor my thanks; but when you are in my part of the world, come and live with me. After I get through with these things in there, I shall see you again sometime. There are some gentlemen of the Delta who will never forget Captain Wilson." "Well," the gruff old Captain answered him, "I'll tell my little girl about it, and I reckon I'll get my pay from her. But now I shall have to be leavin' you before long," he resumed, as he studied again the appearance of the country into which they had now come. "We're raisin' the Old Bend landin', or the place where it ought to be."