Chapter 11

"Then those fellows are stung."

"Pooh! Those cheap toughs. They're nothing but tools. There's probably been a false transfer made to their names, but that's all; they were picked because they were fighters. Well, whoever picked them hasn't got the least suspicion of what he's started."

"Land titles are rotten things," growled Higgins. "Specially when land sharks are juggling them."

"They waited until the ditches were dug," mused Roger. "They didn't know it would make good land. And then they struck! Higgins, I'm going right down to Garman's and have a little talk with Senator Fairclothe."

"Bet you won't find him. Bet he's away selling this tract again to some other sucker."

But Higgins was wrong. Senator Fairclothe had not gone away. As Roger entered Garman's grounds, he saw Garman, the Senator and a man in long black coat and broad-brimmed black hat in conference upon the verandah. At his appearance Garman, lolling in a lawn chair, chuckled lazily; the Senator became as cold and pompous as the statue he hoped some day would commemorate his services to the Republic, and the black-hatted stranger closed his eyes to mere slits.

"Lo, Payne!" drawled Garman. "Come up out of the sun. You look all heated up."

He looked down at Roger, a smile on his lips as he noted the tenseness of the young man's expression.

"Worrying about something, Payne? Ideals been shattered? Ambition, love-- Where's Annette, by the way?"

His chuckle rose to rumbling laughter.

Senator Fairclothe caught the black-clad stranger's eye and nodded stiffly. The man rose.

"You are Roger Payne?"

"Sit down!" In one leap Roger was upon the verandah facing the stranger. "Sit down!" he repeated. "My business is with Senator Fairclothe."

"My business----"

"Sit down," said Roger softly, and the stranger sat.

"Senator Fairclothe," continued Payne, "there seems to be a little misunderstanding about the title to the land I bought from you."

"You bought no land from me, young man."

"You are president of the Prairie Highlands Association?"

"I was. I severed that connection some months ago."

"Before you wrote me those letters?"

"No, the day after I wrote you the last letter of our correspondence. I had no connection with the company you mention at the time you made your purchase. I had discovered that the Prairie Highlands Association was not upon a firm basis. Of the land which they sold not a foot was owned by them. Their original title was false and invalid. The company now is defunct."

"I see," said Roger after a pause. "And knowing that your recommendations as a United States Senator would influence people to purchase this land, and knowing the title to be invalid, did you take any steps to warn them?"

"A United States Senator, I assure you, young man, has other and more important duties than nursing the petty interests of persons stupid enough to purchase land without seeing it. In fact, it might be considered a duty not to interfere. For the welfare of the country, it is desirable, in fact, that such money as such helpless persons may possess be transferred to the possession of the shrewd energetic men who constitute the vital portion of our population."

"Bravo, bravo!" rumbled Garman, applauding. "Senator, I congratulate you on your logic. Payne, there's the philosophy of our era in a nutshell. Now let us hear how star-eyed youth, inspired by ideals, controverts the wisdom of the togoed sage? Annette, dear!" he roared. "Come out! Come out and have some sport!"

"Miss Annette is not in the house," responded a maid.

"What? She was a minute ago."

"She is not now."

"All right. Too bad; wish you could see her, Payne. She's changed. She's grown up now. Senator, it just occurred to me: Annette is rapidly becoming her father's daughter."

"Well, young man," said Fairclothe complacently. "Have you anything more to say to me?"

"I'm going to keep that land, Garman," said Roger, ignoring the Senator. "Going to keep it in spite of all your tools, whether they're city gangsters, United States Senators, or"--with a glance at the stranger--"your deputy sheriffs."

"Senator!" cried Garman in mock horror. "He slanders the honor of your sacred office!"

"Better keep a-hold of your tongue, young feller," warned the deputy. "I'm a little interested in this, too."

"Well," said Roger, "I think there is something in this that will interest people bigger than you or I or the state of Florida. I think the United States Government is due to become interested down here."

The suspicion of a smile curved the corners of Garman's mouth. There was a moment of pregnant silence; then Senator Fairclothe said impressively:

"I represent the United States Government, sir."

"Do you really?" laughed Roger bitterly. "Then the poor old United States Government is in a bad way indeed. But I deny your claim, sir; I don't think you represent the United States Government, because the United States Government consists of about a hundred million working people like myself; and all you represent, sir, are the few rich men and the few hundred millions of dollars which constitute the power that put you in the Senate."

"Do I understand, sir, that you mean to impugn the honor of the august body of which I have the honor to be a member?"

"No; I'm a busy man; I haven't any time to waste like that. But there's going to be something said about using the mails to defraud before this is over. That's Federal business."

"Be careful, sir; I am a member of and represent the Federal Government, and I shall take care that nobody casts any aspersions upon its honor or mine."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"What? Sir, do you mean to defy----?"

"Consider the aspersions cast. What are you going to do about it?"

"He calls," chuckled Garman; "show your cards."

"I shall----"

"Hm," interrupted Garman, and the Senator obediently hesitated.

"I shall not state here and now what means I shall utilize in meeting, as befits it, this defiance of our sacred Government. Nor shall I continue any communication or intercourse, or any association whatsoever, with the party or parties guilty of such defiance."

"I reckon this young feller has tooted his horn long enough," drawled the deputy sheriff. "Roger Payne, I----"

Roger turned his back deliberately and went down the stairs.

"Here! Come back here!"

Roger was walking across the lawn, bound for the path that led to his camp. He heard the click of a revolver being cocked on the verandah, but he did not look up.

"Oh, put that thing up, you ass!" said Garman disgustedly. "And go back to Flora City and draw your time--Payne, you're a big, bold buck. There's only one bigger in the country; and you and I are going to have a lot of fun before we're many days older."

Payne did not pause to look back or reply. Garman's taunts had driven him close to the point of explosion. The wretched situation in which he found himself in regard to the land he had paid for and drained was a muddle in his mind. Senator Fairclothe's brazen confession was a confusion. The one thing that was clear to his comprehension--as a touch of white-hot steel is clear to its victim--was Garman's assertion that Annette had changed and was becoming her father's daughter. And when he came upon her--rather when she stepped out before him--in the hidden path near the edge of the wild apple trees, Roger saw that Garman had spoken the truth.

She had changed. She had grown older. Her beauty was as great as ever, but it was now the beauty of a sophisticated, disillusioned and hardened woman, rather than that of the buoyant girl he had known. He could not define the change that had taken place in her, so subtle was it; but as he looked at her he instinctively flung out his hand, a gesture of pleading for something gone, and cried out in youth's agony:

"Annette! Annette!"

And then the miracle happened. At the sight of him, at the heart throb in his tones as he called her name, she seemed to shiver, then to awaken. She seemed to change before his eyes; though it was only he, seeing with the eyes which that moment had given him, who could have been sensible of the change. She seemed to grow and freshen as a parched rose at the touch of life-giving water. Her eyes gleamed with the old, frank look, her cheeks were rosy, and she walked girlishly as she came forward.

"Ah! Goody, goody!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Somebody likes me the other way--the way I want to be!"

"Annette!" he said again, and stretched out his hands and touched hers and held them.

"You--are happy again now, aren't you?" he stammered.

"Don't I look it?"

Her eyes were brimming with soothing tears.

"Happy?"

"Yes--for a minute."

He drew her hands against his breast. He held her so, and she looked up, her wet eyes close to his. He put an arm about his shoulders, and she nestled against his strength with a little sigh of content. And then he drew her closer to him, and they kissed once, instinctively, naturally; and she threw her head back and cried, "Ah, God! No, no!"

"Annette! Annette! What is it?"

"No, no! Let me go--let me go, dear. Please--you must, you must!"

She tore herself out of his relaxed arms and pressed her fists against her eyes to shut out the sight of him.

"Go away!" Her voice was flat and heavy. She turned and crossed her arms against the vine-clad trunk of a wild-apple tree and leaned her head upon them. "Don't come near me. You must not. You won't if you--if you play fair."

"Forgive me!" he said miserably. "I forgot--I didn't think----"

"Don't! Don't apologize--to me."

She waited a moment longer, then turned and faced him. The girlhood was gone from her eyes once more, and her mouth was hardened. She did not meet his eyes, she did not look at him, but stared off into the jungle as she spoke.

"I came out here on purpose to meet you." Her tone was cold and precise. "He--Mr. Garman--told me the truth about those three men last night. It is a lie--about your title being a false one. Your title is the good one. The other title is false. They intend to get possession of the land and entangle it in a lawsuit which will ruin you."

"What does it matter?" he cried pleadingly. "What does that matter?"

There was no response from her. She looked steadily off into the jungle.

"That is just what does matter," she said. "You must not let them get possession of your land."

"I don't intend to. But that----"

"I don't want to see them gobble you up like"--she laughed bitterly--"like they're doing to me."

"No! They haven't done that. They can't. I saw it a moment ago."

"Don't! It hurts. No, they haven't gobbled me up yet, but I don't think they'll delay much longer. They're too strong for me, you see: Aunty, and father, and--him. Aunty trained me for it; poor father cries: he's in his power; and he--it's a terribly strong array against one girl--all alone."

"Not quite alone."

"Yes, quite alone. That's the horror of it. I've told you before; you couldn't understand; but it's myself, only my own soul, that can settle this--it's very strange."

"You can't tell me--what it is?"

"I've told you too much now. But you must take care of yourself. No matter what happens you must take care of yourself."

"I don't know if that's so important," said Roger. "I confess I've lost considerable interest in just myself."

"I've--made you--do that?"

"I want to take care of you."

She smiled a smile too old, too cynical for her youthful lips.

"That was a kind thing to say, but----"

"I love you," said Roger bluntly. "I believe you care a little----"

"Don't, don't, don't!" She turned a face toward him full of pleading. "Do you want to torture me? Can't you see----?" Her voice failed her. She struggled a moment and turned round; holding back tears and smiling by sheer force of will, and held out her hand frankly.

"Good-by!"

"I love you," repeated Roger doggedly.

A low chuckle in the jungle startled them.

"Ah, youth, youth, youth!" Garman's huge face was peering at them from behind a mask of flowering moon vine. "'I love you.' Ho ho! Poor Payne!"

"You cad, Garman; you mucker!" cried Roger.

"Go!" Annette flung herself upon him, seeking to push him away, but he stood like an oak.

"Eavesdropping! Fine work, Garman."

Garman roared with laughter.

"Do you really love me?" whispered Annette, suddenly, her lips closed to Roger's.

"You know that now."

"No, not yet; but I will soon. If you love me, you'll do what I ask. Go away. Please, please at once!"

"I can't leave you here, Annette, helpless among all this devilishness."

"I am not helpless. Not if I know you really love me. Can you understand that--it will mean so much to me--it will be the one way you can help me--the only way. Help me to save myself, dear, by showing me I have your love. Go!"

He looked at her. Then he bowed his head and went.

XXIX

"They've jumped us!" Higgins' great neck was swollen with impotent rage as he greeted Roger's return to camp.

"It's my fault, too. Take a good, swift kick at me. I fell down on the job while you were away."

"What has happened?"

Higgins led the way to the edge of the elderberry jungle and pointed out over the drained land. A dozen armed men, outlaws and fugitives of the most vicious kind from Big Cypress Swamp, were scattered systematically over the thousand-acre tract. Two men lay behind the spoil banks at each of the main canal, their heads and rifle barrels showing above the black-earth breastworks. The other men were placed in pairs at strategic points. No one could set foot on the drained land without being seen and subject to fire from two sides.

Through his glasses Payne studied the pair which guarded the end of the main ditch near Deer Key. These were no city toughs who would try to bully rather than fight, but lank-haired, sallow-faced killers from the darkest part of Big Cypress Swamp; men who were desperate because of the crimes they had left behind them, and to whom rifle fire was a familiar argument. By the fashion in which they handled their weapons, Roger saw they were hunters; and the grim way in which they kept watch proved that they had come expecting a fight; to shoot and be shot at; to kill and perhaps be killed.

"That's Garman's work; no one else could get that crowd out of the swamp. How did it happen, Hig?"

"It happened because I'm all bone from the neck up. They used an old trick, and I fell into the trap like a tenderfoot. A few of them came hollering and shooting out of Flower Prairie, stampeding the boys. I figured it to be a raid on the camp, and I hollered for Blease and we ran for the tents. They played the bluff strong. Steamboat Bill got it through the head while he was running for cover--you remember him, the big, black fellow with earrings. Then they threw some lead into the tents, and Blease and I had quite a time holding 'em off. Blease got one of 'em; saw them carrying him away too dead to skin. Then we heard three quick shots, repeated three times down on the muck lands, and the shooting up here quit _pronto_.

"After a while it got through my thick head what had happened. Blease and I took in on the gallop back toward the ditches, but we were too late. They'd jumped it already, a whole army of 'em, and real hard _hombres_. Shoot?" He held out his perforated sun helmet. "I pushed that up on the stick for an experiment, and the guy that drilled it was two hundred yards away."

"It was my fault," said Payne. "Garman was too smart for me. I played right into his hand by going down there. He knew that's what I'd do, and he had this gang waiting and shot them over here as soon as he saw me coming."

"That isn't all," continued Higgins. "As soon as the boys saw Steamboat Bill run against his bad luck they left the job and ran for the brush like rabbits. Blease says they won't come back; they always make tracks when white men start shooting."

"You mean there's only two of us here now?"

"Three. Old Blease has put on the war paint."

"Three isn't enough."

"Not by a dozen, it isn't. Did you learn what they're trying to do to you?"

"They're trying to beat me out of the land by fixing up a false title. Now they've got possession, and their scheme is to carry me from court to court till I'm busted and tired out."

As he spoke he realized fully what this meant. Garman's wealth and influence and the pomp and honor of Senator Fairclothe's position would be arrayed against him. He had seen and heard enough to appreciate that the vast territory of Southern Florida was in the hands of a set of powerful, fearless plunderers, with Garman the arch plunderer of them all. And it was organized, protected plundering.

A county sheriff was a petty pawn in the great game. A county judge would be only slightly larger, and so on, up through state legislatures, the governor, congressman, state supreme court judges, and even up and into the sacred precincts of the United States Senate in the person of Senator Fairclothe. How vast was the power of Garman's plunder organization might be estimated by the degree of ignorance in which the land-buying public throughout the country was kept concerning the true situation in the district. Full-page advertisements in Sunday newspapers created a golden dream in the public mind concerning the Western Everglades; not one single news item crept into print revealing the truth. Roger realized that for such a power to crush him in a court test would require merely that the machine created for such purpose be set in motion. He realized also that the vicious nature of the desperados whom Garman had placed upon his drained land and the desperate measures which would be necessary to regain possession of his own.

Yet he found, a little to his own amazement, that he could look upon the theft with entire calmness. The fact was that it did not seem to concern him deeply. His emotions were a throb from the memory of Annette in his arms. He recalled little else of the meeting. She had been in his arms. And now his arms ached for her again with a poignance which made all other things insignificant.

"Well?" said Higgins. "Going to let 'em do it?"

"Do what, Hig?"

"Going to let them drag you into court and beat you because they've got possession of your land?"

"It takes thinking over," mused Roger.

"It takes fighting, that's what it takes," retorted Higgins. "We've got to roust those hard guys out of there before they take root and put up buildings. Some one's got to chase out to Citrus Grove and burn the wires up for about twenty tough fighting men to be delivered at Citrus Grove as quick as the trains will bring 'em. Twenty fighting men, and twenty riot pump-guns, and a dark night, and I'll kick that bunch off the place and have the place back in your own hands by daylight."

Roger laughed sharply.

"What's the matter?" demanded Higgins, "got a better idea?"

"Higgins, if you think Garman has left our back door open you don't half appreciate what the man is. When were the ox teams due?"

"Whew!" Higgins whistled. "That's so; this is the day for 'em to show up. They've been due since daylight."

"And they've never missed their weekly schedule so far. Ox teams are slow, Higgins, but they're darn sure."

"You think Garman's cut us off then?"

"Higgins, if you'd studied Garman half as hard as I have you'd know he wouldn't fail to do just that thing."

At dark Blease came noiselessly to Roger's tent to substantiate this deduction.

He had followed craftily after the party which he and Higgins had driven northward from the camp, and had found them encamped on Coon Hammock, across the ox trail, a scant mile from the camp.

Roger lay on his cot that night calmly appraising his situation. To the south of the camp Garman's henchmen were in possession of his land. To the eastward lay the trackless waters of the Everglades through which only the Seminoles cared to find a way; on the west--the only way out was through Garman's grounds which meant there was no way at all. Northward there was the ox trail, now closed, and the ghastly mud of the Devil's Playground.

Garman's trap was quite complete. Roger wondered when Garman would see fit to bring its jaws together.

But Garman had contemplated and prepared a sport more pleasing to him than this. The trap did not spring; day after day passed, and the situation remained the same. The men on the muck lands guarded against trespass by day or night. The moon was losing its radiance of nights, but sufficient light still prevailed to make an attempt to cross the ditched track plain suicide. In the north the men on Coon Hammock followed the same policy. No attack was made, but neither was there opportunity for any one to pass unobserved or unharmed.

One of the negroes, weary of hiding in the swamp, tried it and came staggering back to the camp with a bullet hole in his foot. Roger reasoned that Garman's cat-and-mouse tactics were calculated to break his nerve or to provoke a fight which could have only one result. Failing in this the trap had but to be maintained and the inevitable result would be surrender.

On the first night when a slight cloudiness, promised considerable darkness Roger slipped out of his tent trained and primed for the ordeal of a passage through the Devil's Playground to Citrus Grove. He crossed the open space of Flower Prairie while a cloudlet hid the moon. In the uncertain light a course through the jungle was not to be thought of. He looked up, and, encouraged by the gathering clouds, slipped through his fence onto the sand prairie and ran northward.

If he could reach unobserved the timber at the southern end of the Devil's Playground he felt he would be safe. As he ran he prayed for the clouds to hold together until he reached the dark wood. His prayer was answered. He made out a trail running into the timber and plunged into the darkness. The darkness lasted but a little while, however. Roger heard the whinny of horses on the trail ahead. The clouds suddenly parted and the moonlight seemed to light the forest like day. He was in an open space in the forest, and Garman and Mrs. Livingstone and Annette were sitting their horses facing him a few paces away.

"I figured it almost to the minute!" said Garman. "Almost to the minute I figured when you were due to start through the Devil's Playground, Payne."

He laughed shortly at the young man's amazement. "Didn't know I knew about that, eh, Payne? Well, I didn't until you bought that land from the Cypress Company. Then I knew you'd found a new way out and I had it looked up. No go now, Payne; the Devil's Playground is closed for traffic."

Annette was sitting straight and firm in her saddle. She turned on Garman with no fear or faltering in her attitude.

"Is this what you brought me out here for?" she asked, so sharply that Mrs. Livingstone cried out protestingly:

"My dear!"

Garman lowered his head ominously and the taunting smile on his lips turned to a threat as he returned her look. Even by the faint moonlight the sudden leap of anger and the desire to hurt were apparent in his countenance. He controlled himself.

"Yes, dear," he purred dangerously, "it is."

Annette met his gaze fearlessly. "Is there to be any more of the exhibition?"

"Not unless you irritate me, dear. Don't ride away. Gaze upon Payne's young, star-eyed face, my dear. Look upon it well; let it soak into your soul's memory, as it is now. It is your last chance. Next time you see him his face will not be the face of star-eyed youth at all! Preserve the memory, Annette!"

"Have you quite done?" she said.

"I? Certainly, my dear." Garman was nettled at her self-mastery. "Mrs. Livingstone, perhaps Annette has a word or two she wishes to speak to Payne. Shall we ride on and give them a moment alone?"