"You are right. But it seems a pity to send it all away before we have a chance to rub it up and see what it really looks like!"

"By all means, take it at once!" Val urged promptly. "We can always clean it later."

Rupert grinned. "Now that might be a protest against the suggestion Ricky made a few minutes ago. But I'll save you some honest labor this time, Val; I'll take it to town this afternoon."

Ricky laughed softly.

"And why the merriment?" her younger brother inquired suspiciously.

"I was just thinking what a surprise the visitor who dropped his handkerchief here is going to get when he finds the cupboard bare," she explained.

Rupert rubbed his palm across his chin. "Of course. I had almost forgotten that."

"Well, I haven't! And I wonder if we have found what he--or they--were hunting," Val mused as he helped Rupert wrap up the spoil again.

CHAPTER VIII

GREAT-UNCLE RICK WALKS THE HALL

Sam had produced a horse complete with saddle and a reputed skittishness. That horse was the pride of Sam's big heart. It had once won a small purse at some country fair or something of the sort, and since then it had been kept only to wear the saddle at rare intervals.

Not that Sam ever rode. He drove a spring-board behind a thin, sorrowful mule called "Suggah." But the saddle horse was rented at times to white folk of whom Sam approved.

Soon after the arrival of the Ralestones at Pirate's Haven, Sam had brought this four-footed prodigy to their attention. But claiming that the family were his "folks," he indignantly refused to accept hire and was hurt if one of them did not ride at least once a day. Ricky had developed an interest in the garden and had accepted the loan of Sam's eldest son, an earth-brown child about as tall as the spade, to help her mess about. Rupert spent the largest part of his days shut up in Bluebeard's chamber. Which of course left the horse to Val.

And Val was becoming slightly bored with Louisiana, at least with that portion of it which immediately surrounded them. Charity was hard at work on her picture of the swamp hunter, for Jeems had come back without warning from his mysterious concerns in the swamp. There was no one to talk to and nowhere to go.

LeFleur had notified them that he believed he was on the track of some discreditable incident in the past of their rival which would banish him from their path. And no more handkerchiefs had been found, ownerless, in their hall. It was a serene morning.

But, Val thought long afterwards, he should have been warned by that very serenity and remembered the old saying, that it was always calmest before a storm. On the contrary, he was riding Sam's horse along the edge of that swamp, wondering what lay hidden back in that dark jungle.

Some day, he determined, he would do a little exploring in that direction.

A heron arose from the bayou and streaked across the metallic blue of the sky. Another was wading along, intent upon its fishing. Sam's yellow dog, which had followed horse and rider, set up a barking, annoyed at the haughty carriage of the bird. He scrambled down the steep bank, drove it into flight after its fellow.

Val pulled his shirt away from his sticky skin and wondered if he would ever feel really cool again. There was something about this damp heat which seemed to remove all ambition. He marveled how Ricky could even think of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g roses that morning.

Sam's dog began to bark deafeningly again, and Val looked around for the heron which must have aroused his displeasure. There was none. But across the swamp crawled an ungainly monster.

Four great rubber-tired wheels, ten feet high, as he later learned, supported a metal framework upon which squatted two men and the driver of the monstrosity. With the ponderous solemnity of a tank it came on to the bayou.

Val's mount snorted and his ears p.r.i.c.ked back. He began to have very definite ideas about what he saw. The thing slipped down the marshy bank and took to the water with ease, turning its square nose downstream and sending waves sh.o.r.eward.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" yelled one of the men derisively as Sam's horse decided to stand on his hind legs and wave at the strange apparition as it went by. Val brought him down upon four feet again, and he stood sweating, his ears still back.

"What do you call that?" the boy shouted back.

"Prospecting engine for swamp use," answered the driver. "Don't you swampers ever get the news?"

The car, or whatever it was, moved on downstream and so out of sight.

"Now I wonder what that was," Val said aloud as his mount sidled toward the center of the road. The hound-dog came up and sat down to kick a patch of flea-invaded territory which lay behind his left ear. Again the morning was quiet.

But not for long. A mud-spattered car came around the bend in the road and headed at Val, going a good pace for the dirt surfacing. Before it quite reached him it stopped and the driver stuck his head out of the window.

"Hey, you, move over! Whatya tryin' to do--break somebody's neck?"

Val surveyed him with interest. The man was, perhaps, Rupert's age, a small, thin fellow with thick black hair and the white seam of an old scar beneath his left eye.

"This is," the boy replied, "a private road."

"Yeah," he snarled, "I know. And I'm the owner. So get your hobby-horse going and beat it, kid."

Val shifted in the saddle and stared down at him.

"And what might your name be?" he asked softly.

"What d'yuh think it is? Hitler? I'm Ralestone, the owner of this place.

On your way, kid, on your way."

"So? Well, good morning, cousin." Val tightened rein.

The invader eyed him cautiously. "What d'yuh mean--cousin?"

"I happen to be a Ralestone also," the boy answered grimly.

"Huh? You the guy who thinks he owns this?" he asked aggressively.

"My brother is the present master of Pirate's Haven--"

"That's what _he_ thinks," replied the rival with a relish. "Well, he isn't. That is, not until he pays me for my half. And if he wants to get tough, I'll take it all," he ended, and withdrew into the car like a lizard into its rock den.

Val sat by the side of the road and watched the car slide along toward the plantation. As it pa.s.sed him he caught a glimpse of a second pa.s.senger in the back seat. It was the red-faced man he had seen with LeFleur's clerk on the street in New Orleans. Resolutely Val turned back and started for the house in the wake of the rival.

By making use of a short-cut, he reached the front of the house almost as soon as the car. Ricky had been working with the morning-glory vines about the terrace steps, young Sam standing attendance with a rusty trowel and one of the kitchen forks.

At the sound of the car she stood up and tried to brush a smear of sticky earth from the front of her checked-gingham dress. When the rival got out she smiled at him.

"h.e.l.lo, sister," he smirked.

She stood still for a moment and her smile faded. When she answered, her voice was chill. "You wished to see Mr. Ralestone?" she asked distantly.

"Sure. But not just yet, sister. You better be pleasant, you know. I'm the new owner here--"

Val rode out of the bushes and swung out of the saddle, coming up behind him. Although the boy was one of the smaller "Black" Ralestones, he topped the invader by a good two inches, and he noted this with delight as he came up to him.

"Ricky," he said briefly, "go in. And send Sam for Rupert."