got free from Coombs I
searched this floor, every inch of it, and found nothing, not even so
much as a stain of blood. The dead man was heavily built, and Sallie
could never have lifted him alone. There were others--men--concerned
in the affair."

"And you saw none?"

"Only a Creole who came down the bayou by boat just as I reached the
bank. He had some message for Coombs--a snaky-eyed little devil--but
he had nothing to do with the removal of the body, for he was not out
of my sight after he landed."

Bewildered consternation was clearly manifested in the girl's white
face, and yet there was a firmness to the lips that promised anything
but surrender. I was sufficiently a fighting man to comprehend the
symptoms, and my own heart throbbed in quick response to her
anticipated decision. For an instant she seemed to struggle to regain
her breath.

"Oh, how terrible! I can scarcely realize that all you have told me
can be fact. It sounds incredible, monstrous. Why, it is as if we
lived in a wild land, and another century. No novelist could conceive
of such a horrible condition. There were pirates along this coast
once--I have read of them--but now, in our age of the world, to even
dream of such a state of affairs would be madness. What can it mean?
Have you any theory?"

"Absolutely none; I am groping in the dark, without a single clew. All
I know is that Coombs is a big ruffian, but too cowardly to commit
murder. The Creole might, and I would n't trust Sallie with a knife on
a dark night, but, in my judgment, there are others involved about whom
we know nothing."

"You mean there is a band? that we have stumbled into a rendezvous of
outlaws?"

"I suspicion so. This plantation has been practically abandoned for
years. Even when the Judge was alive he lived in town, and could get
no negroes to work out here because they believed the place was
haunted. A bayou comes within a hundred yards of the rear of the
house, so concealed by trees and weeds as to be almost invisible until
you stand on the banks. We are only a little over twenty miles from
the Gulf. Altogether this would make an ideal hiding place for Mobile
or New Orleans thieves. I don't say this is the solution, but it may
be. More likely they will prove to be a local gang, smugglers, or
moonshiners with a touch of modern piracy on the side."

"What do you mean to do?"

The question was asked quietly, and I glanced at her, noting the co