le."

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 beneat