me back at the end of the second day loaded, having
left also several caches behind to be visited on the morrow. But there
was no one in the house, or on the plantation; both Scip and Carl were
gone.

A slip of paper was pinned to the red cotton door. It contained these
words: "It's all right, old fellow. If I'm not back at the end of three
days, counting this as one, come into South Devil after me. You'll find
a trail."

"Confound the boy!" said Deal, in high vexation. "He's crazy." He took a
torch, went to the causeway, and there saw from the foot-prints that two
had crossed. "Scip went with him," he thought, somewhat comforted. "The
old black rascal used to declare that he knew every inch of the swamp."
He went back, cooked his supper, and slept. In the matter of provisions,
there was little left save what he kept under lock and key. Scipio had
started with a good supply. At dawn he rose, made a fire under the old
chimney, cooked some venison, baked some corn-bread, and, placing them
in his bag, started into South Devil, a bundle of torches slung on his
back as before, his gun in his hand, his revolver and knife in his belt.
"They have already been gone two days," he said to himself; "they must
be coming toward home, now." He thought Carl was carrying out his
cherished design of exploring the swamp. There was a trail--hatchet
marks on the trees, and broken boughs. "That's old Scip. Carl would
never have been so systematic," he thought.

He went on until noon, and then suddenly found himself on the bank of a
sluggish stream. "The Branch," he said--"South Devil Branch. It joins
West Devil, and the two make the San Juan Bautista (a queer origin for a
saint!) three miles below Miguel. But where does the trail go now?" It
went nowhere. He searched and searched, and could not find it. It ended
at the Branch. Standing there in perplexity, he happened to raise his
eyes. Small attention had he hitherto paid to the tangled vines and
blossoms swinging above him. He hated the beauty of South Devil. But now
he saw a slip of paper hanging from a vine, and, seizing it, he read as
follows: "We take boat here; wait for me if not returned."

Mark stood, the paper in his hand, thinking. There was only one boat in
the neighborhood, a canoe belonging to the mongrel old hunter, who
occasionally went into the swamp. Carl must have obtained this in some
way; probably the mongrel had brought it in by the Branch, or one of its
tributaries