Durm Clinchell galloped out to the St. Francis Trace, where he met Sheriff Ferris and another posse on their way out to help in the search for Sue Belle, who had been missing for two nights and a day. They returned to the plantation, and by the time they arrived there twoscore or more of the settlers from the surrounding country had ridden in to join in the hunt.
What could they do in the Dark Bend swamps? There were hundreds of square miles of almost trackless brakes. There were tens of thousands of acres of cypress and tupelo-gum morass, where the surface of the ground was but a thin crust upon a deep, soft muck. There were cane-brakes so dense that old swamp-angels had been known to lose their way in them for days at a stretch, circling around and around. There were deep bayous and shoal lakes where American lotus grew in tufts—lakes whose bottoms were partly hard, white sand, partly quicksand, and partly fathomless mud. Worse than the dark gloom of the timber depths were some of the people who scouted out in the densest of the timber, like the big, red, cane-rooter hogs.
Clinchell had offered five hundred dollars to any one who would find the missing girl in the brakes. He had offered another five hundred for the arrest and conviction of any one who had harmed her. The assembled swamp people broke up into squads to go out in every direction to ransack the woods.
Before they had fairly started, sawmill hands said that they had seen Lunmer Andrest at daybreak out by the Blue Bayou, on the trace there.
"What was he doing there?" a white man demanded.
Then cotton-pickers told of seeing the shanty-boater going through the cotton-fields that same morning.
"I remember now," said the old planter. "I saw him yesterday morning myself, going out around. I was up in the cupola when I saw him, but I didn't think anything!"
"We'd better go ask him—"
"We stopped there at his shanty-boat," the plantation overseer interrupted. "He denied having seen her. He said he'd been out coon-hunting."
"I think I'll ride down and have a talk with him myself," Ferris said.
No one protested, and the sheriff, with two deputies, rode out of the plantation, cut down the trace, and struck across to the shanty-boat eddy. There was the boat, with a little curl of smoke in the chimney, but no one was on board.
Ferris hesitated a little while, and then one of his deputies picked the lock and they all entered. They found the boat scrupulously neat, with the floor clean, the walls well painted and hung with a few pictures and tricks.
They looked back and forth through the living-room and the kitchen, but found nothing to awaken their immediate interest. On the table was a stack of papers and pamphlets, and one of the deputies exclaimed:
"Hue-e! This shanty-boater's reading right smart! 'How to Make Money Work,' 'Money Invested'— Sho!"
He held up a slip of paper and pointed his finger at the signature—"Sue Belle."
All three men read the note that had summoned Andrest upon his nocturnal errand to the Blue Bayou.
"That's evidence!" Sheriff Ferris exclaimed thoughtfully; adding: "The reason I wanted to come here, boys, was because old Durm's been tearing mad about that boy and Sue. Belle. Like's not they've run off together."
"Old Durm said he was here this morning—the stove's hot yet!" The deputies reminded their chief.
"And he was there, those mill hands said, there at Blue Bayou!"
"And he circled back away out in the cotton-fields, away from folks!"
"Rip Morlung 'lowed as old Clinchell hired him to tear up this boat, and he done it," Ferris repeated thoughtfully. "That's why he don't blame Andrest none for taking him in for the reward. I can't get the meaning of this thing nohow. Shanty-boaters are mostly no-'count; but I kind of like Andrest—I sure do! 'Stead of killing old Clinchell, he acted like a gentleman and had him peace-bonded. Course, if he's harmed that girl—if he's harmed her! We got to find him, boys; but it's best not to talk none about this—swear me that, boys!"
"We won't say a word, suh!"
"There's more to this than we know. I want to get to talk to that boy; but if he's done any crime, why, of course—"
"Course, we got our duty to do, suh!" Sheriff Ferris carefully folded the note and put it into his wallet. They retreated from the shanty-boat and, having locked the door, rode away, discussing the matter in low tones.