"Accident up Jonesboro las' night, Peter."
"What was it, Mr. Bobbs?"
"Tump Pack got killed."
Peter continued looking fixedly at Mr. Bobbs's broad red face. The dusty
road beneath him seemed to give a little dip. He repeated the
information emptily, trying to orient himself to this sudden change in
his whole mental horizon.
The officer was looking at Peter fixedly with his chill slits of eyes.
"Yeah; trying to make a jail delivery."
The two men continued looking at each other, one from the road, the
other from the motor. The flow of Peter's thoughts seemed to divide. The
greater part was occupied with Tump Pack. Peter could vision the
formidable ex-soldier lying dead in Jonesboro jail, with his little
congressional medal on his breast. Some lighter portion of his mind
nickered about here and there on trivial things. He observed a little
hole rusted in the running-board of the motor. He noticed that the
officer's eyes were just the same chill, washed blue as the winter sky
above his head. He remembered a tale that, before electrocution became a
law in Tennessee the county sheriff's nerve had failed him at a hanging,
and the constable Dawson Bobbs had sprung the drop.
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