f Garman's men would
see us if we did. I don't like to have him know where we're bound for."

Higgins was silent.

"Well?"

The engineer's reply was to crash into the thicket, breaking the way;
and Payne followed without more words.

At noon they dropped on a bed of vines which fairly smothered the
brush, and ate sparingly of the venison they had brought; cautiously
they dipped water from a deep root hole and barely wet their lips.

"Have we made four miles?" asked Higgins.

"Just about--less than a mile an hour. Better start again before we
begin to stiffen."

They went on, resigned to a continuance of the morning struggle, unable
to see far enough ahead to distinguish the country beyond. One moment
they were in the grasp of the jungle, the next they had broken through
and stood panting and wide-eyed on the edge of a realized paradise of
dreams. It was a tiny lake bordered by a small, grass-grown prairie
dotted with small clean clumps of palmetto, pine and cypress. The
water of the lakelet was clear blue, and the grass round it waved
softly. The palmettos grew in small circles and with the pines and
cypress seemed like islands in a gentle sea; and each island held in
its center a spring of cold clear water seeping up through a limestone
bottom. Long, swaying streamers of Spanish moss hung from the pines;
up in the cypress were the mysterious air plants with the scarlet
orchids naming in their hearts. And beyond the prairie was a grove of
custard apple swathed in the gentle, blooming moon vine.

"It was black!" said Payne firmly, when they had drunk carefully from
the lake.

"What was?"

"That land we just came through."

"Black is right. First-class stuff."

"Worth the fight to find it--if it isn't already sold. Land fit for a
man to spend his time and money to put in shape. Come on!"

They crossed the enchanted prairie with scarcely a word for its beauty
and plunged into the grove beyond. The custard-apple trees ran to
fifteen feet in height and twelve inches in diameter, but between their
trunks was plenty of room for passage.

The grove gave way and they were up to their waists in a growth of
thick, rank saw grass, its half-inch wide blades with sharp, serrated
edges cutting the bare skin of their hands like knives. Far away on
the northern horizon, beyond an apparently unbroken sea of grass, rose
the ragged forest of a great swamp, its outlines sinister even at that
distance.

For