“Well,” Scott whispered to Murphy, “let’s get out of here and see what we can find.”

Murphy was ready enough to move and perfectly willing to tackle the whole camp single-handed if necessary, but he was surprised that Scott did not want to wait till the camp was asleep, since he had already taken such precautions to avoid detection. “Think they have settled down yet?” he asked, as they crawled out of the brush.

“No, but I thought we might cut a circle around here and maybe find out how they get the lumber out of here. We can sneak in and look over the mill and the logs later on if we get a chance.”

They took a good look at the location of the pile of brush so that they would be able to locate it again, and started off through the woods to the southward. They moved cautiously so that they would not make any noise, and would be able to hear any one else who might be traveling the woods that night. The sky was clear and they could see fairly well. Before they had gone very far they sighted a road a short distance ahead. When they reached it they were very much surprised to find that it was a railroad. The rails were wooden “two-by-fours” and the ties were slabs from the mill, but it was a railroad just the same. They stood and gazed at it a moment in silent wonder.

“A railroad!” Murphy exclaimed softly. “You’ve got to admire their nerve whatever you may think of their honesty. Wouldn’t that beat you?”

“Imagine building a railroad to haul off stolen goods and getting away with it for over two years right here within a few miles of town.”

“If they had built a steam railroad and a bigger mill no one would ever have found it,” Murphy growled sarcastically. “It’s always the little fellows who get caught. If they had just stolen a loaf of bread or a yeast cake they would have been caught long ago.”

“Let’s follow it up and see where it goes,” Scott suggested, turning down the track toward the south.

They walked in silence for some time, pondering over the gigantic scale on which this fraud was being conducted. There certainly must be some clever men at the bottom of it. They had covered about two miles when the moon peeped over the trees and they discovered a big swamp looming up ahead of them—a great black mass of dense undergrowth barring their way like a wall.

“Must have been some job to put this railroad through that swamp if it is anywhere near as big as it looks,” Murphy remarked. “Jesse James was little more than a piker compared with this bunch.”

The vegetation in the swamp was so dense that it seemed almost like going into a tunnel. Gradually their eyes became used to the darkness and they could see a little better. A small opening in the trees ahead let in the moonlight and Murphy started forward with an exclamation of astonishment. They were on a solid dirt embankment built up there three feet at least above the level of the swamp and ditched deep on either side.

“No half-way measures for them!” Scott exclaimed. “They must have expected to keep this up for a good many years to make all this worth while.”

A sudden inspiration had come to Murphy. He was down in the ditch studying the sides of the old dirt embankment. After a careful examination he started up with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Now I know where I am!” he exclaimed, “or rather where I am going.”

Scott looked at him inquiringly. He had not seen anything which meant anything to him. He waited impatiently for an explanation.

“These people did not build this embankment,” Murphy explained. “It’s as old as the hills. It is one of the first railroad embankments ever built in the United States if it is what I think it is.”

Scott smiled a little incredulously. He had never heard of a railroad in Florida at a very early date, especially in that part of it, and he thought that he knew his history pretty well. Murphy was too interested in what he had found to notice him.

“I have never seen the thing before but I have heard of it often. It ran from Weewahitchka up on the river to the town of St. Joseph down on the gulf. It was built with wooden rails just like this and the cars were pulled by niggers instead of an engine.”

“What was it for?” Scott asked.

“To get the cotton from the back country down to the coast.”

“But why didn’t they take it down through the river instead of hauling it down through this big swamp on this expensive fill?”

“Because there was no deep water harbor at the mouth of the river and St. Joseph had one of the best harbors east of Pensacola.”

“Never heard of it,” Scott retorted. It sounded like an improbable story, and he thought that Murphy must be trying to string him.
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