Payne was not greatly concerned one way or another with Garman's
apparent change of heart toward his enterprise. He had no intention of
asking or receiving favors. All he asked was that Garman keep his
hands off.
The rest of the week saw the line fence completed and a good slice of
the elderberry jungle cleared away and burned. Besides this, Higgins
and Payne cruised the drowned land and ran the lines where the ditches
were to be dug when the ditcher should arrive. Two main ditches,
running in a V from the head of the Chokohatchee, Higgins' figures
showed, would drain the surface water off the thousand acres of lake
which had been sold to Payne as prairie land.
In the soft mud the big ditching machine would eat its way forward at
the rate of half a mile a day--a week should suffice to put the main
ditches through. As soon as the surface water was off, Higgins planned
for a system of short lateral ditches running at intervals into the two
branches of the V. Thus every portion of the thousand-acre tract would
be subject to thorough drainage. Following the drainage of the surface
water the underground seepage would run off as a matter of course.
Garman apparently was as good as his word. Each morning Payne awoke
expecting to find that his fence had been cut during the night, but so
far the wire remained unmolested.
"That proves that Garman is boss of the whole country, cattlemen and
all," said Payne one morning. "The cowman that I whipped intended to
come back."
"If something had not interfered he'd have been back that night with a
gang. He was so mad it must have taken something awfully strong to
stop him, and that means it was Garman."
"Yes," agreed Higgins; "but I wouldn't exactly look on him as a bosom
friend, if I were you."
"Pooh! I'm not fooled a bit by him. He's simply playing with me--or
trying to do it. Well, we'll try to be right here, still doing
business, when the game is over."
One morning a negro from the brushing crew came running up to Payne's
tent in great excitement.
"Boss, boss! Trouble in the jungle oveh dah. White man driving
colored boys away with rifle."
Payne followed the excited man and found that the machetes of the black
gang, hacking a space in the heart of the jungle, had exposed an old
clearing containing a tumble down shack. A tall, gnarled man with long
hair and beard stood before the door of the shack, a Winchester held in
his hands in businesslike fashion. Behind him hovered a young woman,
who must have been refined and beautiful once, but who now was
slatternly, and two children.
Payne called out, "Good morning, neighbor, what seems to be the
difficulty?" and started toward the shack.
The man with the rifle did not reply. He merely raised the weapon till
the sights were full against Roger's breast. The young man stopped.
"Don't shoot, Cal; please don't shoot!" whimpered the woman. "They're
too many for you."
"Shut up!" growled the man. "Git in the house."
"Put down your gun," shouted Payne. "Tell me your trouble. My boys
been bothering you?"
"You're a-botherin' me," retorted the cracker. "You cal'late to run me
off my place here. Well, I ain't a-going."
Payne looked about the clearing and saw that here, hidden from all the
world in the dense elder growth, the squatter had attempted and
succeeded in making a primitive sort of home. Fish nets and traps,
otter and coon skins, hung on the walls of the shack. In the clearing
was a cultivated patch of the Seminole "contie" root, which could be
ground into flour, and a scattering of domestic vegetables. On a few
stunted trees were a few dried-up oranges; and on the branches of one
of the larger trees was hung a swing fashioned from tough-fibered
creepers. On one side of the rude shack a patch of moon vine was being
trained along the wall.
"My name is Payne, neighbor," said Roger presently.
The squatter eyed him suspiciously for a long while. At last he
dropped the rifle in the hollow of his arm, keeping a ready thumb on
the hammer.
"Mine's Blease," he said at last.
Roger regarded the man thoughtfully for a long time. To his surprise
he perceived that Blease was not at all of the unfavorable type he had
expected to find squatting in such a place. The man's hair was long
and ragged, his beard likewise, and he was poorly nourished and clad;
but Roger had lived enough in the open to learn how deceptive are
external appearances in showing the true character of a man. As he
looked at Blease, meeting the other's hard eyes, he sensed the true
worth of the man hiding beneath the guise of a shiftless squatter. As
for the woman, it was obvious that she was Blease's superior.
"Tell me, Blease," said Payne suddenly, "How long have you been living
on this land?"
"'Bout two years," replied the squatter after a long pause.
"You don't pretend you have a title to it?"