Chapter 12

"I am sure Annette can have nothing to say to this Mr. Payne," replied Mrs. Livingstone quickly.

"Don't you be so sure of that," said Garman curtly. "Youth calls to youth!"

Annette's riding crop fell suddenly upon her mount and she went past Roger on the gallop out onto the prairie.

"Youth calls to youth!" repeated Garman staring after her with angry eyes. "Mrs. Livingstone, don't you remember when you were young; when you had ideals and hopes of realizing them, and you could love, nobly and purely, without thinking of money?--ha, ha, ha! Must you really follow Annette? Really!"

He pulled his horse close to Roger.

"Well, Payne, how do you like my rat pit? Hard to get out of, eh? Don't waste your time trying; I've made sure you're going to stay put."

"I've been thinking," said Roger calmly, "that perhaps the best act of my life would be to pull the gun inside my shirt and shoot you through the head right here."

"Don't talk nonsense; you can't; you're too civilized. Besides--Hi, there!--Look behind you, Payne."

Roger laughed without turning.

"No, you don't get the drop on me with that old trick, Garman."

"Speak, you back there--what's your name--Harney?"

"Yes, sir," said a muffled voice in the shadows behind Roger. "Ed Harney--Joe Harney's brother. I've got him covered."

"Ho hum!" yawned Garman. "I must follow the ladies. Especially, Annette--magnificent, tender, fiery little Annette!--Damn her! Something has happened; she's bold, defiant! She needs taming. Great sport, woman taming--in the swamp. Good night, Payne. Pleasant dreams!"

A cloud bank floated across the moon, plunging the woods into Stygian darkness. Out on the sand of the prairie the thud, thud, thud of Garman's galloping horse grew fainter and died away. A rift in the clouds revealed the moon for an instant. Roger whirled round, seeking to see the man who had called himself Harney. The clouds closed up again, the woods were black; and a Southern whippoorwill chuckled foolishly. Ahead, on the trail which he must follow to reach the Devil's Playground, Roger heard the footsteps of three men, and knew that Garman had taken all precautions to make good his assertion that the Devil's Playground was closed to traffic.

The anger which was in his heart craved an outlet. He moved toward the hidden men, then paused. They were three to one; in the dark a fight would be folly. Nothing would please Garman better than for him to plunge blindly into a hopeless battle. As Roger thought over the situation his anger rose and clarified. He realized now what a poor figure he had cut face to face with Garman, and he understood why. Garman had dominated him, and made him appear the baffled victim of Garman's superiority. Garman had dominated him, had played with Mrs. Livingstone till she rode away, helpless, outraged. But Annette had outfaced him, and Garman knew it!

"Something has happened!"

Roger recalled Garman's words, and a thrill shot along his spine. Garman did not dominate Annette; he did not hold her helpless by his hypnotic presence as formerly. Something had happened. Roger feared to think what, though hope whispered to him; and he turned back to camp not at all crest-fallen because the secret way through the Devil's Playground was closed. He came into camp with an easy, swinging step, such as no defeated man should display, and Higgins, appraising him as he listened to Roger's brief statement of the case, said:

"Hm. Then you know about it, do you?"

"About what, Hig?"

"About Willie High Pockets!"

"What! Willy been here?"

Higgins' thick brows met in a puzzled frown above his eyes.

"Payne, do you mean to tell me that you go out and find we're shut in like rats in a pit and come back here stepping high, without knowing about our friend Willy?"

"I don't know anything but what I've told you, Hig! Garman has got us shut in. Got us hopelessly cooped up. That's all I know."

"Well, you're a gamer bird than I thought, then. But why so frisky?"

"I figure he's got us about licked," replied Roger, ignoring the question. "We've got one chance in a million. We'll have it out with those birds on the muck land to-night after the moon is down. We may roust 'em. We may not."

"By God!" swore Higgins swiftly. "I'm almost sorry Willy High Pockets showed up. Your idea is the one I've had in mind for days. A fine fight we'd have given them, too. And now that darned Injun cones along and spoils it. We can't try it now."

XXX

"Why not?" demanded Roger.

"Willy High Pockets came crawling into camp on his belly about ten minutes after you'd left. He came with a message from that white side-kick of his he met in the swamp. You can't guess who that guy is."

"Who is he?"

"Davis."

"What! The fellow they tried to get on the Cormorant?"

"Exactly."

"Is he some sort of a detective?"

"I suspect so. Willy ain't much on the tell. He says that man has got Uncle Sam behind him! And this Davis sends us serious word that we're to keep away from Garman's men. Whatever happens we mustn't get into a fight. We've got to stick right in camp and play safe, or we'll spoil two years' work for Uncle Sam. The first dark night--to-morrow night probably--it will be over, whatever it is, and Davis will come here and explain. That's what Willy High Pockets said, and if you'd seen him tell it you'd know it was a darn serious business. By the great smoked fish, Payne, there's a big game being played round here. I feel it in my bones. And I'm sore because I haven't got a finger in the pie."

"What can it be?"

"You got me. But whoever this Davis man is he's got Willy so he isn't afraid of Garman. That means something big."

"We'll give Davis to-night and to-morrow night," said Roger, after pondering the matter a moment. "After that----"

"Hell's delight! And I almost hope that Davis falls down on whatever he's doing."

On the narrow there was no sign to indicate that Davis or any one else was concerned in the affairs of the district. The grim guards on the muck lands held their stations. It was apparent that they had orders not to leave the tract or to seek trouble, but to be ready to shoot and shoot accurately at any one venturing to trespass. Blease scouted northward on the ox-team trail and reported that Coon Hammock was still occupied. Payne himself went through the elderberry and saw grass jungle and through his glasses saw men guarding the approach to the Devil's Playground.

The strain was beginning to tell on all three men in the clearing. Each hour now seemed a day, each sight of a Garman man was a torture.

"It ain't human," muttered Blease. "I can't stand it."

Higgins lay flat on his back in his tent, staring up at the canvas.

"It had better be a dark night to-night," he said, with a grim smile. Roger silently agreed. And he realized that this was what Garman had foreseen and planned for when he digged the pit--the sense of imprisonment and the desperate attempt to break out, regardless of consequences.

"He's too smart to be just a man, Garman is," droned Blease; but Roger stopped him.

"He's nothing but a man; nothing but a man who likes to hurt. Don't let me hear you say he's anything but that."

To Roger and Higgins the sudden, fierce sunset came as a benison, presaging the coming of the night. There was no thought of food or sleep. Narrowly they watched the sun go angrily down in the west and the night come rolling over the heavens from the east. Clouds appeared, first a few scatterings of fleecy stuff, next solid cloud banks through which the waning moon strove in vain to send its rays.

"It will be a dark one," said Roger.

Higgins on his cot laughed harshly.

"Come through, Davis; to-night or never."

They lay out through the night, waiting, hoping for events, and they waited in vain. The first purple-rayed warning of sunrise in the morning found them in a mood of despair. As the second day came on with no sign of Davis they turned their steps toward the tents.

"I don't wait any longer," said Higgins, loading his rifle. "Soon as good shooting light comes I start doing business."

The others followed his example, and Blease led the way by a tortuous path through the elderberry jungle to a point near Deer Hammock. They crawled forward, ready to cover the pair of guards at the head of the canal. Blease was in the lead. Lying flat on his breast he thrust his rifle barrel out of the jungle, searching for his quarry. Presently he rubbed his eyes.

Roger crept close to him and searched the grass-covered expanse of drained land carefully with his glasses. Then he stood up and stepped out into the open.

The drained land was deserted. Garman's guards were gone.

XXXI

The discovery brought neither relief nor elation to Roger. Amazement smote him dumb for a moment, then came suspicion that this was only another of Garman's traps. He strove to follow the man's psychology to an explanation of this move. Was Garman merely playing with him again, arousing false hopes which would be diabolically crushed?

That seemed the logical reason for the move. What would Garman's next move be?

"Looks like a trick, doesn't it?" said Higgins.

"Yes."

Roger strode down to the head of the main drainage ditch where two of the guards had held watch. The forms where the men had lain in the soft black muck behind the spoil bank were still sharply defined. Their departure must have occurred during the darkest hours of early morning. They had left behind them a flask full of colorless liquid, one whiff of which proved its contents to be moonshine whisky.

"Queer thing," said Blease. "Reckon they must have left in a hurry or they'd never have forgot their licker."

Higgins and Roger preceded cautiously over the tract, making sure that no guards lay hidden in the ditches. The trails left by the departing men were easily followed. They led, not to the river or toward Garman's as might have been expected, but scattered and lost themselves to the southward in the tangle morass of the cypress swamp. Here and there articles had been left behind in what savored of a flight; unopened canned goods, a deer carcass, a frying pan, a rifle and a pair of shoes. Roger studied the tracks leading into the swamp and saw that several of them had been made on the run. It was apparent from all signs that the guards had fled, driven by fear of something.

"Blease," said Roger suddenly, "you scout up the ox trail and see if they're gone from Coon Hammock, too; and, Higgins, you slip up towards the Devil's Playground and see what you can see."

He went on down the main ditch toward its junction with the headwaters of the Chokohatchee River, keeping a close watch for possible lurking danger beyond his line. Near the mouth of the ditch he found a dugout evidently left behind in the flight of the guards. In the dugout he paddled the rest of the distance down the ditch, hidden from sight by the spoil banks on the canal's sides.

It was broad daylight when suddenly he checked the canoe at the entrance to the river. The plop of a pair of paddles propelling a canoe upstream came from round a bend and Roger lay down flat on the bottom of the dugout, his rifle resting upon the prow. The rifle covered the spot where the canoe must come round the bend. He was on his own land, and he would not allow the guards to regain possession without a fight. He saw the white prow of the canoe shoot out past a tuft of saw-grass on the bend, and laid his eye to the sights. Another stroke of the paddles and the canoe was in full view, and Roger found his front sight bearing upon a button on the silken shirt which stretched taut across Garman's great chest.

A roar like the bellow of an angered bull welled from Garman's throat as he recognized Payne, an inarticulate cry of rage, then a silence. The current carried the canoe back a trifle and with an oath Garman drove it forward with his paddle. In the stern was Senator Fairclothe, dumb and helpless from fear.

Garman struck his paddle in the bottom and held the canoe motionless. His eyes, usually lazy and indifferent, now blazed beneath the fleshy brows with the madness of rage. He glared full in the eyes above the rifle barrel and bellowed:

"Where's Annette! ---- you, Payne, give her up!"

Roger's heart leaped at the words. He felt an impulse to jump up and shout; but he kept his cheek to the rifle butt and responded:

"Keep to your own side of those stakes, Garman, or I'll sink your canoe."

"Answer me!" hissed Garman. "Answer me, or by God! the alligators will make a meal of you!"

"You've got your answer. Keep off and keep out of danger."

"Give her up! Do you hear: give her up or she'll be sorry she ever was born."

Roger pondered a moment for the right answer.

"Nothing doing," he said firmly.

"You admit she's come here then?"

"Keep your hands in sight, Garman," said Roger. "I'm taking no chances--now."

"You hear, Fairclothe?" demanded Garman. "She's run away to this squirt. She's been with him all night. By----! when I get hold of her there won't be any talk of marriage--now."

"You've got to come and get her first, Garman," retorted Roger. If Annette had fled she had undoubtedly gone to get away from Garman. Garman had jumped to the conclusion she had gone to Payne. She had not; and Roger reasoned that in some manner she had gone down the river, whence she would eventually reach civilization. Every hour that he could delay Garman from turning to this surmise would be valuable.

"You've got to come and take her," he repeated. "I won't give her up now."

"You hear him, Fairclothe?" sneered Garman. "What do you think of your daughter now? Nicely brought up, nicely watched, I must say. You poor--fool! You'd better jump in right here and drown yourself. He's had your Annette all night; now he's going to keep her at the point of a rifle. I suppose you intend to make the conventional restitution by marrying her, Payne? By----! I'll spoil that--I'll take her away from you. I'll turn her back to you when I'm tired of her. Then you can marry her, Payne! Give her up. I'll wipe you out, including her, before I'll let her get away like this."

"Come and get her," repeated Roger.

Fairclothe found his voice.

"I demand that you return my daughter, young man."

"I am not holding her against her will. She is free to return to you if she wishes to do so."

"I demand that I be allowed to speak to her."

"I cannot grant that demand."

"You refuse to allow me to communicate with her?"

"If she wishes to communicate with you I won't prevent it."

"You young scoundrel!"

Roger did not reply.

"If you have harmed my little girl, I warn you you will be punished to the utmost."

"You talk like a parrot!" snarled Garman. "Talk sense--if you can."

Fairclothe cleared his throat. "Did my daughter Annette come to you of her own free will?"

Roger hesitated before replying.

"No!" he said defiantly.

"Ah! Garman, Garman, what did I tell you--what did I tell you? I knew Annette never would leave you of her own free will!"

"You ---- impudent squirt!" said Garman, "You mean to tell me you---- No, you wouldn't be man enough to steal her. Who brought her to you?"

Again Roger debated.

"If you come and get her as you threaten to do, you may find out."

Garman's rage was ghastly to behold. The flesh of his face seemed to swell in puffs, his nostrils widened, his eyes seemed to recede beneath the fleshy brows. He held up his great hairy hands, closing and opening them; but enough reason remained in his rage-drunken mind to comprehend the iciness of the blue eyes above the rifle barrel.

"By----! Fairclothe, I believe you did it yourself," he cried, venting his rage on the helpless Senator. "Don't try to talk back. I believe you did it, you and that dried-up, gold-digger of a sister. But by----! if you have you'll be yanked out of the Senate and go to jail, Fairclothe! Don't talk! I'm sick of you."

He jerked his paddle from the bottom and the current gently drew the canoe back downstream. Roger forced a smile of false triumph upon his face. He must not let Garman turn elsewhere to look for Annette.

"Licked, eh, Garman?" he taunted. "I'll go back and tell Annette about it. We'll enjoy it together."

The canoe was drifting down the bend.

"And come in a hurry, Garman, if you intend to get her; because if you wait long you won't find her here."

Garman appeared not to hear; but he swung the canoe round furiously, and paddled out of sight down the river.

Higgins and Blease returned soon afterward, each reporting that the guards to the northward had departed, apparently in the same hurried fashion as those on the muck land. Payne wasted no time in an attempt to puzzle out the reason for it. If Garman had withdrawn the men to lay a new trap, it was obvious that Annette's flight had upset his plans. For the time being at least his mind was too inflamed with rage over her daring in thwarting his will, to admit the consideration of any other problem. He would be too obsessed with thought for gratifying his revengeful lust to trouble about Payne's land.

Roger related briefly the fact of Garman's visit, omitting mention of Annette.

"Then he'll be coming back to clean us up, you think?" asked Higgins hopefully.

"I think so--I've got good reasons for believing so," replied Roger. "He won't come alone, but with a gang big enough to make sure of the job. Blease, this isn't your scrap at all, and I suspect it's going to be a real one. The ox trail is open and the mules can travel it, so you'd better take a span of them and drive your family out of danger."

Blease deliberated.

"Reckon I won't," he said at last. "Family's safe in there in the elder bush. I'll stay. Mebbe get a chance to even up with Garman."

Roger selected a high spoil bank near the center of the muck land as his post. From there he could see any one who approached from the river or from the cypress swamp. Blease took up a hidden position in the elderberry jungle, from which he could cover the open prairie toward Garman's, and Higgins secreted himself in the palmetto scrub of Flower Prairie. Higgins awaited the expected onslaught merrily; Blease was hopeful of revenge; and Roger, as he lay with his rifle ready, smiled because Annette was out of Garman's power. Wherever she was, he felt she was safe. He pictured her as she had faced Garman fearlessly two nights before--straight, strong, self-reliant--and was confident that her absence was of her own doing, and that whatever the circumstances she was free of the influence of her aunt, of her father, of the drugging magnetism of Garman, and in control of her own destiny.

As the hours dragged by and he broiled beneath the merciless sun with no sign of a move on Garman's part, his confidence waned. Had Garman discovered that Annette was not at Payne's camp? Had he discovered her whereabouts?

Roger recalled the signs of an unpremeditated flight on the part of Garman's guards, and his heart sank. Was it possible that their flight had some connection with Annette's disappearance? They were all desperate men, the most vicious Of criminals, who had fled to safety in the cypress swamps because their savagery unfitted them for existence in a civilized environment. Inflamed by moonshine whiskey they would be capable of anything, even of forgetting for the moment of Garman's dominance of them.

Roger swore helplessly, and sought relief from his torturing thoughts in physical labor. The direct rays of the subtropical sun had dried and heated the surface of the soft muck land until it radiated heat like a stone pavement. With the butt of his rifle Roger dug deeply beneath the surface until he reached damp, cool earth and, scooping a hollow, stretched out full length to cool his burning body. A buzzard soared lazily about in the cloudless sky, and his thoughts leaped back to the flight of the desperadoes.

What a fool he had been to feel assured of Annette's safety merely because Garman was unaware of her whereabouts! She rode out in the evening--probably alone. And the rattlesnakes in the swamp were no more dangerous than the gang which Garman had scattered about the district!

He rose, and with glasses to his eyes peered through the dazzling heat waves, hoping against hope to catch some sign that Garman was coming. He gave up hope. Hours had passed. Garman would have been back long ago if he was coming. And he would have come if he had continued to believe that Annette was with Payne.

Garman must have discovered the true circumstances of Annette's disappearance. In no other way was his failure to return to be explained. And Roger had been lying there in the dirt, waiting like a fool, while Garman was taking measures to get her in his power again!

The dugout lay in the big ditch close to its junction with the river; and the river ran down to Garman's house. Roger stepped into the craft and shoved off. He was thrusting the boat out into the current of the river when a faint whip-like crack came to his ears. He shoved back and leaped ashore.

Higgins had fired a shot up on Flower Prairie.

XXXII

Roger lay hugging the ground, his finger on the rifle trigger, peering through the dancing heat waves and straining his ears for the crack of shots in reply. He could not see Flower Prairie from his post, but Blease could; and he knew that the squatter was on the alert, ready to throw in aid of Higgins. He kept his own position because all three had agreed that Garman's gang would attack from several directions. If a single shot answered Higgins the latter could deal with his adversary; if it was a volley Roger and Blease would rush to his assistance.

The tense, breathless seconds passed; they became minutes, but no second shot shattered the sultry silence. Roger relinquished his rifle and picked up his glasses. Again he scanned the muck land and its boundaries without result. Presently he saw Blease emerge from the elderberry jungle. The squatter stood staring toward Flower Prairie where the shot had been fired. Then with a movement of relieved tension he threw his rifle over a shoulder and started to walk easily in the direction toward which he had gazed.

Roger followed him on the run. When he came to the little spring lake in the prairie he saw Blease squatting on his heels calmly regarding Higgins who, at the lakeside, was carefully washing the bloody shoulder of the Seminole, Willy High Pockets.

"Darn it all, Willy, why didn't you sing out, why didn't you sing out?" the engineer chattered in deep self-reproach. "Holy smoked fish! I wouldn't have had this happen for a farm; you know that, Willy. Hold steady; that's the stuff. Hell, Willy, I'll kick myself for the rest of my natural!"

"'Twon't hurt him none; a little bleeding's good in this weather," drawled Blease.

"You shoot _ojus_ quick," said the Indian.

"I had to, Willy; I had to," protested Higgins. "Couldn't make you out, and I couldn't risk any one getting the drop on me."

"Shoot first; look who is by'm by. _Holowaugus_. No good."

"I took him for one of Garman's gang," explained Higgins to Payne. "I couldn't see for the brush."

"Did purty well, consid'ring that," ventured Blease.

"_Esoka--Bonus-che why-o-me_," said Willy.

"What?"

"_Why-o-me_--me want some."

"Is that what you came for?" demanded Roger.

The Indian shook his head.

"_Chobee eestee hotkee_ (big white man) send me."

"For whiskey?"

"No. _Chobee eestee hotkee_ come soon himself. He say I go here. I come. Him shoot. _Esoka--bonus--chee why-o-me_."

"No. No whiskey," said Roger. "Who is this big white man, Willy?"

"Him come _ojus_ soon. _Etalitke_. (Talk much) Friend you. Gimme tobacco."

Later, while Higgins and Roger were sewing up the wound in Willy's shoulder, Blease suddenly uttered a warning whistle.