which would banish him
from their path. And no more handkerchiefs had been found, ownerless, in
their hall. It was a serene morning.

But, Val thought long afterwards, he should have been warned by that
very serenity and remembered the old saying, that it was always calmest
before a storm. On the contrary, he was riding Sam's horse along the
edge of that swamp, wondering what lay hidden back in that dark jungle.
Some day, he determined, he would do a little exploring in that
direction.

A heron arose from the bayou and streaked across the metallic blue of
the sky. Another was wading along, intent upon its fishing. Sam's yellow
dog, which had followed horse and rider, set up a barking, annoyed at
the haughty carriage of the bird. He scrambled down the steep bank,
drove it into flight after its fellow.

Val pulled his shirt away from his sticky skin and wondered if he would
ever feel really cool again. There was something about this damp heat
which seemed to remove all ambition. He marveled how Ricky could even
think of trimming roses that morning.

Sam's dog began to bark deafeningly again, and Val looked around for the
heron which must have aroused his displeasure. There was none. But
across the swamp crawled an ungainly monster.

Four great rubber-tired wheels, ten feet high, as he later learned,
supported a metal framework upon which squatted two men and the driver
of the monstrosity. With the ponderous solemnity of a tank it came on to
the bayou.

Val's mount snorted and his ears pricked back. He began to have very
definite ideas about what he saw. The thing slipped down the marshy bank
and took to the water with ease, turning its square nose downstream and
sending waves shoreward.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" yelled one of the men derisively as Sam's horse
decided to stand on his hind legs and wave at the strange apparition as
it went by. Val brought him down upon four feet again, and he stood
sweating, his ears still back.

"What do you call that?" the boy shouted back.

"Prospecting engine for swamp use," answered the driver. "Don't you
swampers ever get the news?"

The car, or whatever it was, moved on downstream and so out of sight.

"Now I wonder what that was," Val said aloud as his mount sidled toward
the center of the road. The hound-dog came up and sat down to kick a
patch of flea-invaded territory which lay behind his left ear. Again the
morning was quiet.

But not for long. A mud-spattered car cam