Sam's
boat--

Without a word of explanation to Lucy, he dashed out of the room and
downstairs at his best pace. As he left the house Val broke into a
stumbling run. There was just a chance that she had not yet left the
plantation.

But the bayou levee was deserted. And the post where Sam's boat was
usually moored was bare of rope; the boat was gone. Of course Sam Two
might have taken it across the stream to the farm.

That hope was extinguished as the small brown boy came out of the bushes
along the stream side.

"Sam, have you seen Miss 'Chanda?" Val demanded.

"Yessuh."

"Where?" Carrying on a conversation with Sam Two was like prying
diamonds out of a rock. He possessed a rooted distaste for talking.

"Heah, suh."

"When?"

"Jest a li'l bitty 'go."

"Where did she go?"

Sam pointed downstream.

"Did she take the boat?"

"Yessuh." And then for the first time since Val had known him Sam
volunteered a piece of information. "She done say she a-goin' in de
swamp."

Val leaned back against the hole of one of the willows. Then she had
done it! And what could he do? If he had any idea of her path, he could
follow her while Sam aroused Rupert and the house.

"If I only knew where--" he mused aloud.

"She a-goin' to see dat swamper Jeems," Sam continued. "Heh, heh," a
sudden cackle of laughter rippled across his lips. "Dat ole swamper
think he so sma't. Think no one fin' he house--"

"Sam!" Val rounded upon him. "Do you know where Jeems lives?"

"Yessuh." He twisted the one shoulder-strap of his overalls and Val
guessed that his knowledge was something he was either ashamed of or
afraid to tell.

"Can you take me there?"

He shook his head. "Ah ain' a-goin' in dere, Ah ain'!"

"But, Sam, you've got to! Miss 'Chanda is in there. She may be lost.
We've got to find her!" Val insisted.

Sam's thin shoulders shook and he slid backward as if to avoid the white
boy's reach. "Ah ain' a-goin' in dere," he repeated stubbornly. "Effen
yo'all wants to go in dere--Looky, Mistuh Val, Ah tells yo'all de way
an' yo'all goes." He brightened at this solution. "Yo'all kin take
pappy's othah boat; it am downstream dere, behin' dem willows. Den
yo'all goes down to de secon' big pile o' willows. Behin' dem is a li'l
bitty bayo' goin' back. Yo'all goes up dat 'til yo'all comes to a fur
rack. Den dat Jeems got de way marked on de trees."

With that he turned and ran as if all the terrors of the night were on
his tra