In the meanwhile nothing had occurred to put Qualley and Roberts to
sleep. They had followed the beach for only a short distance after
passing Murphy and had then turned off into the swamp on a deer trail
with which they were familiar. Progress was slow in the darkness of the
swamp and the rough going did not better their already ragged tempers.
Each was absorbed in his own brooding and there was no talking with the
exception of frequent angry exclamations when some one of the party
tripped over a hidden stick or root. They were all in an ugly mood,
especially Roberts, whose disposition was never very pleasant.
The trail bore away to the northeast and headed for the upper end of the
swamp which cut back into the forest from the beach like a big bay. The
trail soon lead them across that narrow neck of swamp and out on to an
open pine ridge which bordered the big swamp to the east of it. At the
point where the trail struck it the ridge was two or three miles wide,
but it narrowed rapidly to the northward and terminated three miles
inland in a very narrow neck not more than a hundred yards wide between
two very dense swamps.
This was the place where they confidently expected to catch Scott and
Murphy. Roberts looked at the narrow strip of open pine woods, almost
free from underbrush, with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Not much cover for them there,” he growled. “A rabbit could not get
across there to-night without our seeing it. Unless they get suspicious
and go west on the beach they are ours.”
“Of course,” Qualley replied thoughtfully, “as I said a while ago, there
is a possibility that they may go west or try to go north, but I don’t
think they will. They probably think that they can travel as fast or
faster than we can and would take advantage of the lead they had to beat
it straight down the beach for town. They do not know that the swamp is
there and when they come to it they will naturally try to get around the
end of it. That means about three miles down the beach for them and
about five up here if they follow the edge of the swamp. They do not
know that this is the only way through, so why should they try to avoid
it?”
“Well, let’s get ready for them. They’ll be dropping in on us first
thing we know and catch us blabbing here. I’ll take this clump of brush
on the edge of the swamp, and Bob and Jim can hide over there on the
other side. You can go down just beyond there in that bunch of palmetto
and if by any possibility I should miss ’em you would be sure of them.”
Roberts suggested this arrangement because he feared that Qualley, who
he thought was not known to be implicated in the crime, might be loath
to shoot these innocent men. He had no such scruples himself and wanted
a position where he would have the best chance at them.
Qualley raised no objection and they all separated in silence to take up
their assigned posts. In about an hour, they figured, their victims
ought to be putting in an appearance if they were coming at all. Qualley
was apparently dozing comfortably in his clump of palmetto and the two
hired men whispered cheerfully enough behind their brush screen. To
Roberts alone, burning up as he was with a combination of hatred and
fear, the minutes seemed to drag insufferably. He glanced nervously at
his watch every few minutes and eagerly stared at the first projection
on the edge of the swamp where he expected his victims to appear. As the
time he had estimated for their arrival grew nearer, it was all that he
could do to keep from crawling out of his hiding place and sneaking down
to that point to see if they might not be hiding just around the corner.
More than an hour had passed and still they did not come. Roberts became
as restless as a caged tiger. The owls had ceased their weird concert
back in the swamp and there was nothing to break the stillness of the
night save the never-absent small noises of the night. If only the wind
would blow, or a tree drop or anything to break that nerve-racking
monotony. Roberts moved irritably from one cramped position to another
and still the tardy hours dragged wearily by without any change. Only
the moon turned in her course and started the shadows slanting in
another direction.
And yet they had not come. A certain chill crept into the air, a
forewarning of the break of day. It was the hour when the pulse of the
world is at the ebb, when sick men sometimes fail to catch the flood and
are stranded in the great Beyond. No man can sit through it in the woods
at night and not feel a certain awe, close akin to fear. Roberts felt
it. All criminals are superstitious and with the turning of that tide he
felt convinced that fate had turned against him. His prey had escaped
him and with their escape every hour lessened the chances of his
opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his stolen wealth. The possibility
of spending the greater part of the remainder of his life in a
penitentiary, just when he had acquired the means to enjoy himself, was
almost maddening.
The first sudden streak of the southern dawn shot out across the eastern
sky and Roberts could stand it no longer. With one last lingering look
at that long-watched point he crept from his hiding place and sneaked
cautiously back with many a nervous glance over his shoulder to the
place where Qualley was stationed.
“Let’s leave the boys here to watch this place and go back to the
beach,” he whispered. “Maybe we can track them now in the daylight.”
“Well, if you want to risk it,” Qualley assented, a little reluctantly,
“but they have about an equal chance of seeing us first. If they have
gone west they have gone so far that we cannot catch them and if they go
any other way they must either come here or go up past Mike so I do not
see what you will gain, but if you want to go I’m game.”
“We’ll at least know where they did go,” Roberts replied irritably.
“Anything is better than waiting here doing nothing.”
Qualley had just risen from his cozy nest and stretched himself when he
suddenly grabbed Roberts’ arm and they both dropped quickly back into
the shelter of the brush. A man could be very distinctly seen slipping
along the edge of the swamp towards them.
Roberts gave a grunt of satisfaction and pushed over the safety on his
revolver. “Let me take him,” he hissed.
“All right,” Qualley replied, “but let him get closer. There will be
less chance to miss, and besides the other fellow is not in sight yet
and you’ll scare him off.”
They waited breathlessly while the man came slowly forward, slipping
along from clump to clump and apparently wholly unconscious of their
presence. Roberts was so eager to shoot that only constant warnings from
Qualley prevented him from taking a shot even at the risk of losing the
other man. At last the figure had reached a point almost opposite them
on the edge of the swamp. He stepped out into the open an instant and
looked about him. He was not more than thirty yards away.
Roberts raised his pistol and aimed quickly. It was an easy shot and not
much chance to miss. Just as he fired Qualley shouted and struck up the
weapon. The suddenness of the blow knocked the pistol out of Roberts’
hand and the bullet whined harmlessly through the treetops.
Roberts turned savagely upon Qualley with the snarl of a wounded tiger.
“Double cross me, will you?” he gasped, snatching at his knife.
“Double cross nothing,” Qualley answered quietly. “Another instant and
you would have shot Joe.”
Sure enough it was Joe bringing the rifle from the camp as he had been
ordered to do and he was not slow in making himself known when he heard
the shot. They had both forgotten all about him.
“Well, I guess that will be sufficient warning to the other fellows,”
Qualley remarked after a satisfactory explanation had been made to Joe.
“There is not much use in hanging around here any longer now. If they
had not started west before that they probably are making pretty good
time in that direction now.”
Roberts was too much chagrined to have any reply. He pushed his revolver
into his holster with disgust and took his rifle from Joe.
“There is nothing to do now, I suppose,” he grumbled, “except to go down
to the beach and see where they did go. I am at least going to have that
satisfaction before I sneak off into any hiding place.”
“I’ll go with you,” Qualley agreed. “I’d like to see where they went
myself and there is the bare possibility that they have spent the night
down there on the beach and were too far off to hear that shot. Joe, you
and the other boys watch this pass till we get back.”
There did not seem to be much need for caution now, but they moved
rather carefully and scouted the ground pretty thoroughly before they
rounded any corners. They hardly expected to find the boys traveling
that way in the daytime, but they were not taking any chances on meeting
them unexpectedly. When they came to the cut-off trail they had not yet
seen any tracks except their own.
“Want to take the trail or follow the edge of the swamp?” Qualley asked.
“Let’s follow the trail,” Roberts growled. He could feel his chances
slipping away from him and it made him surly.
They traveled faster now, for there was not much chance of meeting any
one in that direction and soon came out of the swamp on to the beach. It
was easy to read the signs on the smooth sands of the beach and a glance
showed them two tracks going east. They searched more carefully. There
were none coming back.
“Must be somewhere between here and the neck,” Qualley said; “there is
no possible way out unless they found a boat. I never heard of any one
going through that swamp.”
“Not a chance,” Roberts exclaimed with rising spirits, “we’ll get ’em
yet.”
The trail was plain enough on the open beach, but it had them worried a
little when it turned back into the edge of the forest. It looked as
though they might have changed their minds and decided to circle back to
the west.
“Wonder if something scared them out?” Roberts asked anxiously, as they
searched for the trail in the forest. The anxiety was of short duration,
for they soon picked up some tracks in the palmetto scrub and when they
had learned its general direction they had no trouble in following the
trail.
Qualley guessed the reason for the digression into the forest pretty
closely. “Thought they would be less conspicuous in here and might lose
us for a while,” he explained. “It would have worked all right last
night and caused us considerable delay, at least if we had been hard on
their trail as they probably thought we were. Rather clever of them.
They make it a little hard for us yet.”
But Roberts was not to be discouraged. He had been down in the dumps a
short time before and could see nothing ahead of him but an
uncomfortable cell in the penitentiary or an almost equally unpleasant
life in a dismal hiding place; now he felt sure of his prey and was in a
triumphant mood.
“I would not give them much for their chances,” he retorted grimly, and
hastened his pace on the uncertain trail. “In half an hour our worries
will be over.”
And it certainly looked as though he was right, for the palmetto scrub
had given way to a stretch of open sand and the trail lay clear before
them, leading straight to the sleeping men on the beach less than a
quarter of a mile away.