“Hello!” he exclaimed joyfully2. “Just what I wanted. What are you out for, Williams? I’ll ride back with you.”
“Howdy, Lockwood!” responded the foreman, looking almost equally pleased. “Where you been? Where’d you get them clothes? Craig’s been gettin’ right anxious about you. This is Friday, you know. I come out to the bank.”
Lockwood had lost count of the days. On Fridays the car went out to the bank at Bay Minette to bring back the thousand dollars or so for the weekly pay roll.
“I oughter been back two hours ago,” the turpentine man went on, “but the roads—O Lawd! I skidded3 every way—hadn’t no chains on—and last thing, I skidded right inter4 a tree, and shook something outer gear.”
“But what’s the matter with you? You didn’t get hurt?” asked Lockwood, observing Williams’ constrained5 attitude.
“Kink in my back—strained it someways. Oh, I can drive all right, but I was wonderin’ what I’d do if I had to get out to crank her. But you can go back with me, and it’ll be all right.”
It was after five o’clock when they started, with a little rain falling once more. They both sat in the front seat; the curtains were all closed, and the satchel6 containing the bank roll was wedged tightly between them on the seat.
Williams drove cautiously, squirming occasionally as he wrenched7 his lame8 back. Lockwood offered to take the wheel, but the foreman refused; he said he was used to this kind of road. But they had to proceed at the slowest pace to get any sort of security; at every turning the car skated sideways, and once almost turned end for end.
Even more dangerous were the hollows, where the mud was deep, almost bottomless, it seemed. There was a chance of being “bogged down,” so that it would take a team of mules9 to free the car. The creeks10 were up, too, spreading widely out of their channels, and occasionally an overflow11 crossed the road, so that they splashed through it half-hub deep for a hundred yards.
The rain increased a little. It was plainly going to get dark early.
“Got to get on faster than this,” said Williams. “I wouldn’t like to get caught in the dark, with the roads this way.”
He increased the pace, taking chances, escaping accidents by a continually narrow margin12. It was not more than five or six miles to the camp now; he began to recognize familiar landmarks13. But it was one of the very worst bits of road, and they were driving slowly through a sea of liquid-yellow slime, when a man came out from the trees, a little ahead, with the evident intention of speaking to them.
Lockwood thought he wanted a lift, a thing usual enough. He wore a long, waterproof14 coat to his ankles, the high collar turned up to his nose, and a dripping, black hat pulled down to his eyes. Hardly an inch of his face could be seen. Williams slowed the car almost to a stop, to let him aboard. The man stepped on the running board, and pushed his head and shoulders through the curtains, with his hand thrust forward.
“Hand out that money you’re carryin’!” he said in a hoarse15, obviously disguised voice.
Lockwood put his hands up. Williams sat as if petrified16, still holding the wheel, and the car came to a dead stop in the mud. The bandit reached far in and grasped the black satchel from the seat between his victims.
“Set right still ez you are. I’m keepin’ you-all covered!” he growled17 and stepped backward into the road. He backed away a few steps, still holding the muzzle18 trained on the car, then wheeled and dived into the woods where he had emerged.
Williams was tugging19 at his revolver and swearing fervently20, but Lockwood plunged21 out of the car. Bursting through a screen of drenching22 gallberry bushes he saw the robber at full run, twenty yards ahead up a narrow trail. Still farther he saw the head and shoulders of a tied horse.
“Stop! drop that bag!” he roared. The man glanced once over his shoulder, but ran on, running awkwardly, hampered23 by his long slicker. Lockwood was only ten feet behind when he reached the horse and attempted to mount. The horse, restless at the commotion24, sidled off, capered25, the bandit lost his hold, and Lockwood, charging up, seized him by the arm.
“drop it, you damn fool!” he ejaculated. “Are you crazy? Don’t you know you can’t get away with this?”
The man’s eyes met his under the wet hat-brim, and the satchel dropped to the ground. Lockwood picked it up.
“Now beat it—quick!” he half whispered. “Here comes Williams.”
As the horse thundered away, smashing through the dripping undergrowth, he fired two shots far aside into the woods.
Williams was coming at a lame hobble, waving his gun.
“You didn’t let him get away?” he called furiously.
Lockwood turned, wet from head to foot.
“Couldn’t help it,” he said. “He had his gun on me. I wouldn’t get shot just for Craig’s pay roll.”
“Well, I reckon you saved the pay roll, anyway,” said Williams. “He had me plumb26 paralyzed just for a minute. Did you get a look at him?”
“Not so that I’d know him again. Hadn’t we better move on? He might take a crack at us from the woods.”
“Wish I could get a crack at him!” the foreman grumbled27, peering at the dismal28 swamp edge. “Well, let’s go. This’ll scare Craig some. First time anybody got held up here that I can remember. This here’s a rough country, but there ain’t no crime in it.”
Lockwood had his own opinion about that. Crime seemed to be the only thing he had met since coming into the swamp country. This unexpected encounter had suddenly changed all his attitude. He no longer dared to confide29 anything in Craig—not, at least, until he had seen Jackson Power again, and learned why the heir to a fortune came to be holding up the turpentine pay car. Very likely it was sheer criminal instinct, he thought. He did not see how it could be anything else; and he sickened of the whole loathsome30 tangle31.
He was sick of it. He wanted to get out of it all, but he wanted to take Louise with him. She ought to be glad to go, too, he thought—almost as glad as she had been when she fled in girlhood from a home that was perhaps more squalid, but surely not more criminal.
They could go to New Orleans. As the car jolted32 and splashed, his weary mind hazily33 dissolved itself into dreams. He could always earn a living. Or they might settle on the Gulf34 coast. He liked the South; there was an ease and balm about it that was medicine to the soul—only not here, not at Rainbow Landing. He could plant a grove35 of Satsuma oranges or figs36 or pecans. He might get a partner and go into turpentine; he knew the business now and liked it. He would forget his past life. He would forget everything, even his revenge. If Louise would go with him he would leave Hanna and the rest of the Powers to swindle one another as they pleased, a nest of criminals together.
The glare of the lamps through the mist showed a pine tree by the road with a great livid blaze on its trunk. They were getting into the turpentine region. They turned down the woods trail to the camp. There was a great uproar37 at the news of the attempted holdup, when the car stopped at the commissary store.
Lockwood got praise and welcome, but he could not talk. He was deadly tired, and every nerve and muscle seemed to ache. He got away to his old room as soon as he could, took a heavy dose of quinine and went to bed, where he fell as instantly asleep as if the medicine had been a knock-out drop.
He slept all night, and awoke feeling rested and considerably38 more optimistic. To his astonishment39, it was past eight o’clock; to his joy, he had no fever symptoms. The sun was
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