When he rose to his feet, Diada was trotting down the road with the speed of the wind.
“Get your horses--everybody!” Flournoy shouted.
With that word of command began the greatest man-hunt that Tickfall Parish had ever known.
Every man in Tickfall who had any sort of animal to ride bestrode the beast and joined the procession, which moved out of town in the wake of Diada. Hundreds of negroes who had ridden in from the plantations the night before galloped down the road behind the whites. And every canine of any size or color attached himself to the posse and went plunging along with the men.
They came to a straight stretch of road where they could see for over two miles. At the far end of that stretch they beheld Diada, her head and shoulders stooped far over, trotting with gigantic strides, traveling with the tireless persistence of a desert camel.
To their surprise, Diada did not run into the swamp, but continued upon the main road, which led to the Tickfall landing on the Mississippi River. Seeing this, the men did not attempt to run her down, but remained content to keep her in sight. At the end of an hour she was still trotting easily with no signs of fatigue.
Finally Diada turned and ran into the forest. With a mighty clamor the men raced after her, floundering through the underbrush, and galloping far over into the woods. When the posse had passed out of sight among the trees, Diada quietly climbed down from the branches of a big tree, where she had concealed herself, and started down the road again.
Yelping furiously they drove her from the main road across the prairie marsh which skirted Lake Basteneau, and penned her upon a narrow point which projected like a peninsula into the lake and was thickly overgrown with cypress saplings about as large around as a man’s wrist.
The marsh between the road and the lake was too soft for the men to venture on with their horses, and it was even dangerous for a man to walk upon because of the quicksands. But the men could look from the road, across a part of the lake, and easily see Diada and the dogs.
“Don’t go after her, men!” Flournoy called. “Let the dogs run her away from there! We’ll get her when she comes off that point!”