"Honest!
A man in the pay of Rodney McCune! Well, we can let it wait till we get
there. Listen! There's the whistle that means we're getting near home. By
heaven, there's an oil-well!"
"So it is."
"And another--three--five--seven--seven in sight at once! They tried it
three miles south and failed; but you can't fool Eph Watts, bless him! I
want you to know Watts."
They were running by the outlying houses of the town, amidst a thousand
descriptive exclamations from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet every
one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in the middle of a word.
"Do you hear music?" he asked abruptly. "Or is it only the rhythm of the
ties?"
"It seems to me there's music in the air," answered his companion. "I've
been fancying I heard it for a minute or so. There! No--yes. It's a band,
isn't it?"
"No; what would a band----"
The train slowed up, and stopped at a watertank, two hundred yards east of
the station, and their uncertainty was at an end.
From somewhere down the track came the detonating boom of a cannon. There
was a dash of brass, and the travellers became aware of a band playing
"Marching through Georgia." Meredith laid his hand on his companion's
shoulder. "John," he said, "John----" The cannon fired again, and there
came a cheer from three thousand throats, the shouters all unseen.
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