XXVII
And on Tuesday he kept his word and the land was his for a few hundreddollars--all except the half of Lot No. 210, which it appeared the"party" declined to sell, refusing to consider any profit whatever.
"It's like a woman," remarked Munsell.
"Is your 'party' a woman?"
"Yes. I guess she's into some game or other, too. Say, what is thisSeminole County game, Mr. White?--if you don't mind my asking, now thatyou have taken title to your--h'm!--orange grove."
"Why do you think there is any particular game afoot?" inquired theyoung man curiously.
"Oh, come! _You_ know what you're buying. And that young lady knew, too.You've both bought a few acres of cypress swamp and you know it. What doyou think is in it?"
"Snakes," said White coolly.
"Oh, _I_ know," said Munsell. "You think there's marl and phosphoricrock."
"And isn't there?" asked White innocently.
"How should _I_ know?" replied Munsell as innocently; the inferencebeing that he knew perfectly well that there was nothing worthpurchasing in the Causeway swamp.
But when White went away he was a trifle worried, and he wondereduneasily why anybody else at that particular time should happen toinvest in swampy real estate along the Spanish Causeway.
He knew the Spanish Causeway. In youthful and prosperous days, when hisparents were alive, they had once wintered at Verbena Inlet.
And on several occasions he had been taken on excursions to theso-called Spanish Causeway--a dike-shaped path, partly ruined, made ofmarl and shell, which traversed the endless swamps of Seminole County,and was supposed to have been built by De Soto and his Spaniards.
But whoever built it, Spaniard, Seminole, or the prehistoric peopleantedating both, there it still was, a ruined remnant of highwaypenetrating the otherwise impassable swamps.
For miles across the wilderness of cypress, palmetto, oak, and depthlessmud it stretched--a crumbling but dry runway for deer, panther, bear,black wolf, and Seminole. And excursion parties from the great hotels atVerbena often picnicked at its intersection with the forest road, butventured no farther along the dismal, forbidding, and snake-infestedridge which ran anywhere between six inches and six feet above the levelof the evil-looking marsh flanking it on either side.
In the care-free days of school, of affluence, and of youth, White hadbeen taken to gaze upon this alleged relic of Spanish glory. He nowremembered it very clearly.
And that night, aboard the luxurious Verbena Special, he lay in his bunkand dreamed dreams awake, which almost overwhelmed him with theirmagnificence. But when he slept his dreams were uneasy, interspersedwith vague visions of women who came in regiments through floweringjungles to drive him out of his own property. It was a horrid sort ofnightmare, for they pelted him with iron-bound copies of Valdez,knocking him almost senseless into the mud. And it seemed to him that hemight have perished there had not his little red-haired neighbourextended a slender, helping hand in the nick of time.
Dreaming of her he awoke, still shaking with the experience. And allthat day he read in his book and pored over the map attached to it,until the locomotive whistled for St. Augustine, and he was obliged todisembark for the night.
However, next morning he was on his way to Verbena, the train flyingthrough a steady whirlwind of driving sand. And everywhere in thesunshine stretched the flat-woods, magnificently green--endless miles ofpine and oak and palmetto, set with brilliant glades of vast, flatfields of wild phlox over which butterflies hovered.
At Verbena Station he disembarked with his luggage, which consisted of acomplete tropical camping outfit, tinned food, shot-gun, rifle, rods,spade, shovel, pick, crow. In his hand he carried an innocent lookingsatchel, gingerly. It contained dynamite in sticks, and the means toexplode it safely.
To a hackman he said: "I'm not going to any hotel. What I want is awagon, a team of mules, and a driver to take me and my outfit toCoakachee Creek on the Spanish Causeway. Can you fix it for me?"
The hackman said he could. And in half an hour he drove up in his mulewagon to the deserted station, where White sat all alone amid hismountainous paraphernalia.
When the wagon had been loaded, and they had been driving through thewoods for nearly half an hour in silence, the driver's curiosity got thebetter of him, and he ventured to enquire of White why everybody wasgoing to the Spanish Causeway.
Which question startled the young man very disagreeably until he learnedthat "everybody" merely meant himself and one other person taken thitherby the same driver the day before.
Further, he learned that this person was a woman from the North,completely equipped for camping as was he. Which made him more uneasythan ever, for he of course identified her with Mr. Munsell's client,whose land, including half of Lot 210, adjoined his own. Who she mightbe and why she had come down here to Seminole County he could notimagine, because Munsell had intimated that she knew what she wasbuying.
No doubt she meant to play a similar game to Munsell's, and had comedown to take a look at her villainous property before advertisingpossibilities of perpetual sunshine.
Yet, why had she brought a camping outfit? Ordinary land swindlersremained comfortably aloof from the worthless property they advertised.What was she intending to do there?
Instead of a swindler was she, perhaps, the swindlee? Had she boughtthe property in good faith? Didn't she know it was under water? Had shecome down here with her pitiful camping equipment prepared to rough itand set out orange trees? Poor thing!
"Was she all alone?" he inquired of his cracker driver.
"Yaas, suh."
"Poor thing. Did she seem young and inexperienced?"
"Yaas, suh--'scusin she all has right smart o' red ha'r."
"What?" exclaimed White excitedly. "You say she is young, and that sheseemed inexperienced, except for her red hair!"
"Yaas, suh. She all has a right smart hank of red ha'r on her haid. Iain't never knowed nobody with red ha'r what ain't had a heap mo''sperience than the mostest."
"D-d-did you say that you drove her over to the Spanish Causewayyesterday?" stammered the dismayed young man.
"Yaas, suh."
Horrified thoughts filled his mind. For there could be scarcely anydoubt that this intruder was his red-haired neighbour across the aisleat the library sale.
No doubt at all that he already crossed her trail at Munsell's agency.Also, she had bid in one of the only two copies of Valdez.
First he had seen her reading it with every symptom of profoundinterest. Then she had gone to the sale and bid in one of the copies.Then he had heard from Munsell about a woman who had bought land alongthe Causeway the day before he had made his own purchase.
And now once more he had struck her swift, direct trail, only to learnthat she was still one day in advance of him!
In his mental panic he remembered that his title was secure. Thatthought comforted him for a few moments, until he began to wonderwhether the land he had acquired was really sufficient to cover acertain section of perhaps half an acre along the Causeway.
According to his calculations he had given himself ample margin in everydirection, for the spot he desired to control ought to lie somewhereabout midway between Lot 200 and Lot 210.
Had he miscalculated? Had _she_ miscalculated? Why had she purchasedthat strip from half of Lot 210 to Lot 220?
There could be only one answer: this clever and astoundinglyenterprising young girl had read Valdez, had decided to take a chance,had proved her sporting spirit by backing her judgment, and had startedstraight as an arrow for the terrifying territory in question.
Hers had been first choice of Mr. Munsell's lots; she had deliberatelychosen the numbers from half of 210 to 220. She was perfectly ignorantthat he, White, had any serious intentions in Seminole County.Therefore, it had been her judgment, based on calculations from theValdez map, that half of Lot 210 and the intervening territory includingLot 220, would be ample for her to control a certain spot--the ver
y spotwhich he himself expected to control.
Either he or she had miscalculated. Which?
Dreadfully worried, he sat in silence beside his taciturn driver, gazingat the flanking forest through which the white road wound.
The only habitation they passed was fruit-drying ranch No. 7, in thewilderness--just this one sunny oasis in the solemn half-light of thewoods.
White did not remember the road, although when a child he must havetraversed it to the Causeway. Nor when he came in sight of the Causewaydid he recognise it, where it ran through a glade of high, silverygrass set sparsely with tall palmettos.
But here it was, and the cracker turned his mules into it, swingingsharply to the left along Coakachee Creek and proceeding for about twomiles, where a shell mound enabled him to turn his team.
A wagon could proceed no farther because the crumbling Causeway narrowedto a foot-path beyond. So here they unloaded; the cracker rested hismules for a while, then said a brief good-bye to White and shook thereins.
When he had driven out of sight, White started to drag his tent andtent-poles along the dike top toward his own property, which ought tolie just ahead--somewhere near the curve that the Causeway made ahundred yards beyond. For he had discovered a weather-beaten shinglenailed to a water-oak, where he had disembarked his luggage; and on itwere the remains of the painted number 198.
Lugging tent and poles, he started along the Causeway, keeping arespectful eye out for snakes. So intent was he on avoiding the playfulattentions of rattler or moccasin that it was only when he almost raninto it that he discovered another tent pitched directly in his path.
Of course he had expected to find her encamped there on the Causeway,but he was surprised, nevertheless, and his tent-poles fell, clattering.
A second later the flap of her tent was pushed aside, and his red-hairedneighbour of the galleries stepped out, plainly startled.
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