_Escape_
It was with a sigh of relief that Linda watched her captors disappear.
Not that she had any hope of getting free--without gasoline--but at
least she would not see those dreadful men for a few hours. Susie was
not nearly so bad.
"I hope you can cook," remarked the latter, surveying her bandaged
ankle.
"Oh, yes," replied Linda. "I've often camped out before."
"Then we can enjoy ourselves for a while. I'm glad to get rid of that
gang.... And, Linda--how 'bout if we be friends? No use making things
worse by getting mad at _me_."
"True," admitted Linda, though she wondered what she could possibly
find in common with the other girl that might inspire friendship.
Seeing a kettle of water steaming on the oilstove, she set herself to
the task of washing the dishes.
"Wish I could help," remarked Susie, in a friendly tone. "But after
this there won't be so many dishes--for just the two of us."
"When do you expect them back?" inquired her prisoner.
"Tomorrow morning, probably. If they get their loot."
"Suppose they get caught?" suggested Linda.
"They won't. Don't worry! They've been planning this crack for months,
and you can bet everything's all set just right. They never get caught."
Linda sighed. It wasn't very promising.
"Tell me how you got into a gang like this?" she asked, suddenly.
"I fell for Slats," replied the other girl. "Thought he was a rich
guy--he spent so much money on me. I was working as a clerk at an
airport, and learning to fly. We ran off and got married."
"But when you discovered that he wasn't straight, why didn't you leave
him?"
"Couldn't. He said he'd hunt me down, and 'bump me off,' if I did.
And he meant it, too. Slats isn't afraid of anything.... I saw right
away that he didn't want a wife, but a pilot, who'd do what he said....
The only fun I get out of it is in the winter, when we go to Europe
or South America, and live like swells. Then he lets me spend all the
money I want."
"But doesn't it make you feel dreadful--at night, sometimes, or when
you're alone--to think of leading such a wicked life?"
"Now, Linda, be yourself!" answered Susie, flippantly. "No preaching!
From you, or anybody else!"
Linda turned away and completed her task in silence. What was the
use of talking to a person like that? She knew now what was meant by
the term "hard-boiled." If ever a word described anyone, that word
described Susie.
She wondered, as she worked, whether it would be worth-while to repeat
her suggestion of the night before. Susie's ankle was so much better
today that she would not be so eager to get to a real doctor. Still,
there could be no harm in trying.
"Wouldn't you like to go off in my autogiro today?" she inquired,
without turning around.
Her companion laughed bitterly.
"Not a chance!" she replied. "Didn't you see Beefy take that big can to
the boat with him? That was _gas_."
"Oh!" exclaimed Linda, her hopes dashed to the ground. "You mean they
don't trust you?"
"They don't trust anybody!" announced the other girl, emphatically. "It
don't pay--in a game like theirs."
"Would you have gone with me?" inquired Linda. "If they hadn't taken
it?"
"I don't know. My ankle's better. But I'm sick and tired of Slats,
though I guess I'd miss the cash and the excitement. And I guess I'd be
too scared he'd get me in the end if I double-crossed him."
Linda was silent. Now that this hope was frustrated, she must think
of something else. Surely this was her chance of escape--with the men
away, and her only companion a cripple.
But the swamp--the dreadful swamp was all about her. How far into the
depth of the Okefenokee she was, she did not know. It was all a vast
unexplored wilderness to her.
"Alive with snakes and wild animals, and alligators, I suppose,"
she mused. Yet nothing savage could be worse than those three fiends
in human flesh who were holding her captive. She determined to face
anything rather than them. Yes; she would run away, if it meant
swimming the swamp!
There was no use loading herself down with food, she concluded,
for most of her trip would be through the water. She would stop at
her plane and take out some chocolate, and her knife; thus lightly
equipped, she would face the wilderness alone.
"Linda," said Susie, interrupting these thoughts, "will you go to my
tent and get me a magazine I have there? I think it's under the cot."
Linda nodded, repressing a smile. She would go, but she would not come
back!
Stepping into the smaller tent, she dropped the flap, and picked up her
flash-light. Then, raising the wall on the other side, she crept out
through the trees to the edge of the island and circled about until she
reached the autogiro. This would give her a few minutes extra before
Susie should realize that she had gone.
As she stood there beside her plane for a moment, wondering whether
she would ever see it again, she had her first real sight of the
Okefenokee Swamp from the ground. Cypress and slash pine trees grew
in abundance, and heavy moss hung about. In the water all around her,
she noticed rushes and water-lilies, and ferns grew everywhere in
profusion. Beneath the surface, she could see thick vegetation; would
this, she wondered, support her weight if she were to attempt to walk
in it?
In the afternoon sunlight the water, the trees, were perfectly still;
except for the birds, the silence was profound. How desolate it was!
Her wrist-watch informed her that it was already four o'clock. Five
hours more, and darkness would come on, enveloping everything in a
blackness such as a city-dweller never sees. Even the sky might be
hidden by the trees, and the wild animals would be prowling stealthily
about in search of food. She shuddered and hesitated.
"But I have an even chance with the animals," she thought. "And with
those thieves, I am sure to lose!" So valiantly, she stepped out into
the water.
The depth was not great at this point, and she discovered that, though
the soft muck sunk beneath her feet, she could still make progress. The
hard rains of July and August had not yet set in, and the "bays," as
the stretches of shallow water were called, had not risen to any great
height.
Laboriously she waded onward, choosing a thick growth of trees in the
distance as her goal. Surely, she thought, where the trees could grow
there must be some dry land. If she could make that spot by nightfall,
she could hide in their depths and sleep. Then tomorrow she could press
on to the westward, and perhaps reach the end of the swamp.
It was a slow, weary progress that she accomplished, and she had to
pick her way carefully, measuring the depth of the water with a stick
which she had cut from a pine on Black Jack Island, but she kept
resolutely on until her watch registered seven o'clock. Then, all of a
sudden, the stick sunk so deeply into the muck that she knew she would
have to swim, and she hastily ate the chocolate which was to be her
evening meal, and plunged forward to swim.
As the time slowly passed, she watched Black Jack Island fading in
the distance, and hope swelled in her heart. She was nearing land
at last--perhaps only an island--but even if she were not out of the
swamp, at least she would be away from her enemies. She smiled when she
pictured the consternation and anger of the men at finding her gone.
She swam on for some distance, now and then pausing to cut the grasses
that became entangled about her legs. Her shoes were heavy, but she
hated to take them off, for they were a help in the shallow water.
After an hour of this exercise, she was utterly exhausted, and she
looked about her in dismay. What if she should drown now, in the
midst of her own country--after she had conquered the Atlantic Ocean
successfully? The thought was absurd; she steeled herself to press
forward, for she was coming nearer to that bank of trees. Surely, there
lay safety!
Had she but known it, she was now entering one of the so-called "Gator
Roads" of the swamp--channels of water which the alligators followed.
But it looked promising to the tired, hungry girl.
The foliage was growing thicker now, and the water-way narrowing. Some
distance on, the trees met overhead, and beautiful moss hung from their
branches, shutting out the setting sunlight, and forming a lovely green
bower. But Linda was scarcely conscious of this beauty, for she was
breathing with difficulty, panting with fatigue. If she could only make
that bank--where the land seemed firm!
A big tree had fallen across the water, and she managed to reach it,
and to cling to it for support while she rested. Her feet hung down in
the muck, and she realized that the water was comparatively shallow.
She wanted to laugh aloud in her relief.
Pulling herself up by her hands, she decided to walk the log to the
bank, and had just poised herself upon its rather perilous round
surface, when she encountered the greatest shock in her life thus far.
Not ten yards away, in the very water where she would have been now,
had she not mounted the log--was an alligator, at least eight feet
long! Brave as she was usually in the face of other dangers, she let
out a piercing scream of terror at the sight of this horrible monster.
"Now I've got to walk the log!" she thought. "It's death if I fall off!"
She watched the alligator a minute or two while she regained her
self-control, and made sure that he was not moving. Then, with eyes
straight ahead, she started to walk the log.
Once, toward the middle, she swayed, but it was only for a second. She
straightened herself staunchly and marched on--to dry land.
Oh, the joy of feeling her feet on firm ground again! To know that
whatever misfortune might come on the morrow, she was safe for that
night at least! She could not drown, or be tortured by enemies; her
only danger would come from snakes. She would take the precaution to
explore her sleeping-place thoroughly before she lay down.
Weary as she was, she did not stop until she had gone farther into the
island. The trees were denser here than they had been at Black Jack;
it would be more difficult to land an autogiro, if by chance Susie
should follow her. Nevertheless, she resolved to stay hidden as much as
possible.
Away from the shore, she finally dropped to the ground and took off her
wet shoes and stockings.
"Not that it will do me much good in the morning to start off dry," she
thought bitterly. "But anyhow, I don't want to sleep in them." And then
she removed her outer garments.
"Wouldn't supper taste good!" she said aloud, envying Susie that
well-filled larder at the camp. But Linda knew that there was no
danger of her starving so soon, after that big noon-day meal, and she
put the thought of food from her mind. Water she could not forget so
easily. After half an hour's thirst, she decided to risk a drink from
the swamp. Had she but known that the water of the Okefenokee is not
poisonous, she would have enjoyed her drink more. The "peat" gives it a
queer taste, but it is harmless.
She was relieved, in her return to the water, to see that the alligator
had gone--which way, she could not tell. Though she was desolately
lonely in that vast abandoned wilderness, she did not care for the
companionship of so ugly a beast!
When she returned to the spot which she had selected for her camp, she
took her knife from its wet case and cut a few stout sticks from a
tree. With these she would explore the ground before she lay down, and
keep them at her side while she slept, as some sort of protection from
snakes.
As with the water, however, Linda's fears regarding snakes proved
unnecessary, for the report of a large number of these in the
Okefenokee Swamp had been proved by hunters to have been exaggerated.
As a matter of fact, Linda did not see one during her entire visit to
the swamp.
She waited until the daylight had faded, and darkness completely
enveloped the landscape before she lay down to rest. The stars were
still visible here and there through the trees, and, as upon the
occasion of her lonely flight to Paris, they somehow seemed friendly.
After an hour or so, she slipped off to sleep.
Only once during that strange, desolate night did she awaken, and
that was when something cold and wet suddenly touched her face. She
started up fearfully, seizing a stick with one hand and her knife
with the other, squinting her eyes for snakes. Her flash-light had of
course been thrown away during her swim, so she could not immediately
identify the enemy that had awakened her.
She laughed out loud when she finally saw what it was. She had rolled
over against her shoes, which were still cold and clammy with water!
She went back to sleep again, and did not awaken until the sun was well
up in the sky. She had no way of telling the exact time, for her watch
refused to go after its bath in the swamp, but Linda judged from the
sun that it must be nine o'clock at least. Her clothing was dry, at any
rate, and her shoes only a little damp. But what a sight she was, she
thought, after that long swim!
She went down to the water's edge to wash, and to drink the water that
must serve as her breakfast, and looked carefully about her--into the
sky, and on the water--for the sight of her enemies. For she had no
doubt that as soon as the thieves returned, they would go in search of
her, believing that she could not have gotten far away.
She was relieved to see nothing, no sign of human beings anywhere, and
she paused to watch some wild birds fly past overhead. Everything was
peaceful and quiet--like a Sunday morning in the country. It was hard
to believe that wickedness existed in such a beautiful world.
Then, abruptly, she noticed the soft swish of water not far away from
her, and she looked up quickly, expecting to see the alligator again.
In that awful second, her worst fears were realized. A canoe, with two
men aboard, was coming straight towards her. The thieves! They had
sighted her--they were wildly waving their arms.
It was too late to hide!