Clinchell had found a man whom he could neither frighten, drive, nor purchase. As he hooked his heels into the sides of his loping mule, on his way from Andrest's shanty-boat, he was so angry that he could not think straight. He took his spleen out kicking the tough sides of the animal he rode; but the mule cared not the least, for old Durm wore no spurs, and his heels were broad, with no harm in them for a thick hide.
Gradually, out of his vehemence, an idea began to grow. It was an idea that looked as if it might be worth ripening and bringing to harvest. Clinchell regarded it with interest at, the first glimpse, and then with increasing satisfaction as he discovered the kind of bud it had. Its flowering gave promise of rich fruit.
He allowed the mule to stop its gallop, while he studied the notion that had sprouted in his fertile mind. His anger gave way to a grin of cruel satisfaction.
The tradition in the Dark Bend swamps that no one ever crossed old Durm Clinchell with lasting advantage was perfectly true. Abandoned claims, families broken up, fugitives none knew where, and oven graves proved that tradition. Old Durm's mental force and cunning had carried him up until he had the power that goes with owning vast areas of timber-land, with picking a thousand acres of cotton, with renting a score of outlying farms, with a checking account in banks amounting to thousands of dollars, and with the say to elect or defeat almost any office-seeker in Cypress County.
Old Clinchell was rapidly working out a plan to pull down the Deerport National Bank, and thus deprive young Andrest of his money. It had been a good deal of a blow to discover that the shanty-boater had won the five-hundred-dollar reward for Morlung. Many a young fool thought five hundred dollars, or even one hundred dollars, enough money to be married on. Suppose Andrest had that notion, and Clinchell's wilful daughter was so foolish as to yield to him?
His spies had told the planter that Sue Belle and Andrest often met out on the traces and down by the river. Andrest never came nearer to the mansion than the edge of the plantation. The daughter of a proud old planter trysting with a river-rat, with a shanty-boater! No wonder the old man had lost his temper and fired his bolts without taking good aim!
"I won't miss him any more!" he assured himself. "Next time that young lad 'll sure take all that's coming to him! He'll lose his money and he'll lose his—"
Clinchell allowed himself to chuckle. He was a shrewd old man, with a thousand wiles and ways, and he took an ignorant man's delight in smartness and trickery. First he must make sure that there was no loophole through which the young shanty-boater could escape his wiles.
"He's got two-three thousand dollars, and he could buy as good a lawyer as is to be had around for that," he told himself frankly. "I don't want any good lawyers mussing up my ideas—no, sir!"
The Deerport National Bank had long been rather exasperating to old Clinchell. Its brains was John Urgone, the cashier, who handled most of its business. Danton Lesgar, a retired planter, was the president, and the board of directors also included Attorney Falls and two sawmill men. Its capital was a hundred thousand dollars, and it had deposits of nearly two hundred thousand. It divided Cypress County business with the Planter Bank at River Bridge and the Logging Bank at Bandsaw, both of which were Clinchell's institutions, although he depended on trusted men to conduct them.
"I got to fix things real bright," Clinchell admitted to himself; "but I expect I can do that. Um-m!" He chuckled more than a little. "I been laying for that old Lesgar!" he went on. "Now I got him on a fifty-thousand-dollar paper—it 'll sure squeeze him some, settling that up! Wonder he didn't look into that timber he took for security! Just the timber onto that land, and there's not much but cut-overs. There isn't five thousand profit, taking that timber off. Sho! Those old political scoundrels thought they'd peace-bond me, eh?"
Old Clinchell was cunning. As security for his bond, he had mortgaged the timber on swamp-lands that were already cut over. President Danton Lesgar hadn't been careful what he took as security.
"All I got to do is forfeit that fifty-thousand-dollar peace bond," Clinchell laughed. "Then I'll let them fight for it—old Lesgar's responsible. I knowed I'd pinch him yet. First thing they know, their little old bank 'll be hanging up a notice of readjustment!"