"An' I'll git rid of my Cracker talk, will I?" he asked, his face brightening in delightful antic.i.p.ation.

"Yes, in a year."

"I knew there was a way, an' you could tell me," said he. Then he linked his arm in mine and dragged me out in the open for a little look around the place.

CHAPTER VI

The Purdues finally came ash.o.r.e, accompanied by two servants, and occupied the opposite end of the bungalow.

Purdue, retired capitalist, undoubtedly affluent, cherubic, in facial appearance jolly, and with a bare pate to which still appended a slightly curling fringe below his hat, laughed with you, but always there came a shrewd glitter in his eyes when trade matters were broached. The itching palm and a penchant for melons yet to be cut were easily a part of his inherited tendency.

Mother Purdue, muchly inclined toward obesity and cynicism, was a human interrogation point. Both children apparently loved the father best and made of him a chum.

The elder married daughter, Mrs. Potter, was Wellesley finished, and a growing replica of the mother. Her mouth had been spoiled at the foolish age by a constant effort to produce dimples in her cheeks, but matrimony and time had been kind and she was now quite sensible. But sister Norma, a thin, frail slip of a girl--the undoubted makings of a beautiful woman--appeared to have arbitrarily rejected the least desirable tendencies of both parents, by the sacrifice of corpulence.

I was busy with final reports and paid little attention to the new arrivals during the week that followed, but Byng, who ate with me usually, said that they were having the time of their lives, and that papa Purdue had evidently forgotten he had stump land for sale. Their boat drew too much water to navigate the river above, and, at Purdue's suggestion, the moonshiner's old flat-bottomed, square-end, scowlike boat was cleaned out, and, after the motor was overhauled, was used by them for frequent trips of inspection to their property above, a tarpaulin being provided to protect them against the sun.

One mid-afternoon Byng rushed excitedly to the bungalow. He had received a telephone message from the station, for me. It was from headquarters:

"Sheriff reports your prisoners broke jail last night. Still at large. Report details of escape, insist on posse, and do what you can to apprehend."

"Didn't I tell ye? Didn't I tell ye?" he repeated, walking about the room. "That d.a.m.n sheriff is about half-moonshiner himself, and the old jail would fall down if ye looked at it," he added excitedly.

"Where will these fellows strike for, Howard?" I asked, gathering up my writing.

"You know Cracker moonshiners as well as I do, maybe. You know they are like a she-bear, or a fox. The minute they're loose they go back to their hole and cubs. They haven't had any moonshine and their tongues are hanging fer it. I'll bet you them fellers are back to the old still by this time, digging fer some they've hid and getting ready to make more. They jest can't stay away. They think you've gone, an'

the sheriff'll let 'em alone. He always has."

"But they escaped last night. They must come thirty or forty miles, so would not have quite time to be there now, would they?" Even as I asked the question I was shedding white duck for my working clothes.

"Yes--that's so, but they'll be there before you can get there. What are you going to do?"

"I think I'll try and beat the moonshiners to it and have things ready for them. As long as you are sure they are going back I think they ought to have a hearty welcome, Howard, don't you?" I asked, putting on high-top boots and yanking my kit from under the bed which I thought was used for the last time.

"Yes, sure, but ye got to take me along," he said, facing me, delighted at the prospect.

"Howard, these men have likely picked up guns and may put up a nasty fight. I will get them by some kind of strategy as I did before.

Besides, if I get it, that's why I am paid. You can't be spared so well, for you are at the head of a business, by which a lot of people live. You have guests here to look after, too," I urged.

He stopped at the window and soberly looked out across the river. Then he walked to the other window, gazed over a long field of growing cotton, a verdant green punctuation of a new era, a new life to him and the whole section.

"An' you want me to stay an' let you go up there alone?" he asked in an injured tone, somewhat in the same manner as he had requested me to take him north five years before. I could see Mamma Purdue, out of stays, sound asleep in a steamer chair at the other end of the veranda, with Papa nearby examining critically the latest vital statistics of Wall Street.

"No, siree--ye got to lemme go this time. Do you 'spose I'm going to let any d.a.m.n Cracker moonshiner get a drop on me with a long John, when I got a gun down here that shoots a dozen times while he's loadin'. Yes, I got guests, but you're the only one I can see now, and I ain't going ter let you enter that swamp with three ag'in' ye. No, sir, ye got to lemme go," he insisted vehemently.

"All right, Howard, get ready," I replied, seeing there was no use to object. "When's flood water? We've got to have it to get up that creek with a boat."

"She floods to-day at five. I know; for my schooner _Canby_ will cross the bar then--inbound."

"As we will have less than two hours to get to the creek we must hurry," I said. "But keep mum. If Mamma Purdue hears of it she will think the whole family is going to be kidnapped or murdered," I added, hurrying preparations.

"We'll have to go in that little skiff of your'n. The Purdue man went out with the young wimmen a while ago in the other one."

"Get ready and be down at the mill as soon as you can."

"I'll be there in a jiffy," he said, hurrying away.

As I hastened out, Mamma Purdue's astonishment at my changed appearance suddenly converted a waking yawn into an interrogation, but my intercourse with the visitors had been limited to observation and prevented inquiry.

Byng, again a woodsman in hunting outfit, brought out the oars and helped the little electric motor skiff along. His great arms and back delighted in action, as he lapsed into the silent wildness of a woodsman hunter. He scanned the river banks unceasingly for signs of the skulking moonshiners, and when we rounded the bend and pa.s.sed the spot where our camp was five years before we exchanged glances.

Silence was necessary. When about two miles from the creek we met the flat-bottom boat, close to sh.o.r.e, in charge of the "Purdue man" as Howard called him. The two girls were gathering lilies from over the sides. Howard waved at them and, as we pa.s.sed closely, warned them not to go ash.o.r.e at that point.

"Why did you do that?" I queried, for the sh.o.r.e had the usual appearance except that it seemed to still have its full virgin growth of thick gums and other soft woods the loggers did not yet want.

"That's Alligator Island. It's more'n a mile long, and they never cut it over 'cause they said the gum logs were no good, but more'n likely it's something else. I go there hunting, but wear heavy cowhide boots.

I can always get a turkey, find a bee tree, and a bear if I want one, an' I've seen bob cats as big as houn' dogs," he told me in a suppressed voice, but never relaxed his scrutiny of gra.s.s patches and stumps along the sh.o.r.e on both sides.

After we pa.s.sed into the creek he held his rifle at full c.o.c.k and faced ahead, the least movement of the high, slough gra.s.s was given a piercing search the whole way up the narrowing creek to the old still. Evidently the gang hadn't arrived there yet.

But Howard Byng's sixth sense, his knowledge of woodcraft and the natives, especially moonshiners, prompted speed for he "just knew"

they would make a "bee line" for the old still. His feverish haste indicated that he felt even more than he voiced. Some uprooted stumps that commanded a good view of the still and the creek, too, would hide us and make a good barricade.

We planted dynamite on both sides of the hole made by my last shot to blow the place up, and we covered the small wires leading to us behind the stumps.

I could see why Byng knew the men would come back. There was plenty of shade and lumber, making reconstruction easy, and daylight inspection revealed that my last shot had not quite demolished their outfit.

Howard insisted on getting out of sight as soon as possible. He acted as though he could see them coming which recalled to my mind his uncanny premonition when working for me as an "axe-man" five years before. He found a place for his rifle and held it full c.o.c.k, glancing occasionally back of us, to prevent a possible surprise attack from the rear. They must come from the river and the sun being behind us was to our advantage if they came from the direction expected.

It wasn't long before Byng started up like a tiger gathering its feet to spring. I could see nothing at first. The narrow creek we came up was crooked as a corkscrew and was visible but a short distance through high swamp gra.s.s. However, I soon saw what made him start and his eyes turn to live coals. Something like a small pole or rifle barrel, that was visible above the gra.s.s a half-mile away, moved slowly but surely. Later I could see it was following the meanderings of the creek. Then, as our eyes became accustomed, we could see two of them.

"They've got a boat and are coming up the creek," he whispered between set teeth, the knots again forming on the lower angle of his great jaw.

It may be that he guessed the real truth before I did, and his blood began to surge. Intensely excited, we watched the thin rifle barrels follow the creek slowly, carefully, stealthily. Soon we noticed two more, and could hear the m.u.f.fled exhaust of a motor. I looked at Byng and saw that he understood. He was again like a wild man, burning for revenge, and he grew worse when the boat rounded the last bend in the creek, revealing three outlaws in the boat in which we saw the Purdue sisters but a short time before. The sun-protecting tarpaulin was torn off, and it was the four supporting uprights that we saw moving above the gra.s.s.

They came slowly, suspiciously watching every quarter like wild animals. Byng's fingers moved so nervously about the trigger of his rifle trained upon them that I reached over and touched his shoulder warningly. I was afraid he would kill them, and moonshining, alone, was no cause for that. He held himself in restraint through powerful effort, and awaited signal from me. I could see that he had the same sickening thought. What had they done with the two young ladies--his guests?

CHAPTER VII

The comfort and safety of a Southern man's guests comes before his own. They are a part of him and more, and with grace he acknowledges it. Even the Cracker makes you feel instantly what is in his heart.

What indignity, what insults, what injury had been visited upon Howard Byng's guests by these outlaws when they took the boat was a matter sure of a reckoning. Without my restraint I am certain he would have shot down each renegade without compunction.