XI
Though hey had him in jail, old Durm Clinchell had cleverly marshaled his forces against President Lesgar, of the Deerport National Bank, and others whom he was determined to strike because they stood in his way. The Planter and Logging banks had called for the money due them, and the Deerport institution could not raise cash enough to satisfy the demand. Lesgar did not see how to meet the emergency, although he had saved the immediate drain of fifty thousand dollars which would have followed an assault on Lunmer Andrest in violation of the heavy peace bond.
Clinchell had succeeded, too, in jailing young Andrest. The information that he had sworn out against the shanty-boater had resulted in the warrant for the young man's arrest, on the charge of abducting Sue Belle Clinchell and "conveying her to parts unknown." The finding of the girl's sidesaddle in the shanty-boat might have two constructions, but old Clinchell would admit but one.
He did not know what Andrest had done in trailing the homing mule until confronted by Ruster Delve, the old man who lived in the shack with a skiff on the roof. Andrest had not asked the old settler's name, but he was easily found, and he readily undertook to go with Deputy Resner to Deerport, on condition that he should not be taken through the Dark Bend swamps, of which he was so much afraid. So Resner took him the long way around, by the railroad west of the swamps, until they could take Banker Lesgar's automobile on the Hills Trace eastward into Deerport.
Ruster Delve went to the jail, where Andrest was brought to him.
"You-all in jail!" he exclaimed. "Well, I declare! And I never s'pected nothing. Why, if I'd known you-all was a scouter, I'd shore 'a' took you back down in the bresh. They never would 'a' caught you if you'd gone with me!"
Then the sheriff led in old Durm Clinchell, who stopped abruptly, his jaw dropping, when he saw Delve. There was no need to ask Delve to identify the old planter. Clinchell's confusion and surprise were sufficient indication that Andrest had really stumbled upon some of the old swamp man's deviltry.
"Howdy, Mr. Man?" Delve greeted Clinchell. "I shore never did expect to find you in jail! What did you-all do with that lady's saddle you was packing around?"
"I didn't have a lady's saddle!" Clinchell roared. "You're a liar if you—"
"Hold on!" Delve exclaimed, leaping to his feet and backing into a corner of the office, where he drew two long forty-fives from somewhere among his weather-faded garments. "I didn't come yeah to be called a liar! You-all apologize and tell about that saddle, or by—"
Clinchell saw death in the angry old man's face. One long revolver held the sheriff, the jailer, the deputy, and Andrest on one side, while the other covered Clinchell, aimed low at his stomach, no matter which way he sidestepped.
"Tell these gentlemen!" Delve warned.
"Why—why, I had a lady's saddle and bridle—I forgot! I bought it—"
"Where is that saddle?" demanded Sheriff Ferris, overlooking Delve's untactful but effective demand for an apology.
"Why, out on the plantation."
"What kind of one was it? Describe it!"
"Why, a thirty-two-pound saddle and black-reined bridle—"
"What's that?" Delve demanded.
"Why—I—I don't reck'lect!" Clinchell gasped. "I—it were—perhaps it were natural leather color!"
CHnchell was trembling as if he had the palsy. His plans were going awry. When Ferris brought out the woman's saddle which he had found on Andrest's boat. Delve identified it immediately.
"I'd know them silver buckles and stars anywhere!" he declared.
Old Clinchell opened his mouth to speak, but shut his jaws with a snap, his thought unspoken. The sheriff turned to him:
"What do you think you've been doing?"
Clinchell sniffed and turned his back. He retreated through the hallway into the corridor where the white men were confined. He tramped heavily on the stone flagging, and he swaggered as he walked, but the officials, who had seen many bad men's bravado, smiled.
"I 'low you could get to go if you had a bond," Sheriff Ferris said to Andrest. "Course, I expect you'd promise you'd be ready any time to come back—a personal promise?"
"I would be ready any time. That old scoundrel has tricked me, and that saddle was sneaked onto me!"
"I suspected it. The old devil's hid his own daughter out, and he wanted you sent away for it," Ferris said. "I'd talk to a lawyer, if I was you. Clinchell tried to ruin your reputation. That's against the law!"
"Sho!" Andrest exclaimed. "I'll sue 'im! I'll sue 'im for a thousand dollars!"
"Your reputation is worth a heap more'n that!" Ferris declared. "You got money in the bank—you're peaceable and law-abiding and neighborly. You let your lawyer see about that. I'll call Mr. Lesgar; he's friendly, and he'll know about a bond."
Half an hour later, under a thousand-dollar bond, Andrest went forth free. Before the afternoon was over Clinchell was served with papers charging him with conspiracy and libel, and demanding damages amounting to fifty thousand dollars, while Andrest strode away up the St. Francis Trace on his way home
It was a strange shift in the fortunes of the shanty-boater. He had put old Clinchell on the defensive, and the planter was in jail, betrayed and defeated by his own malicious temper and vindictive lawlessness.
On his way through the woods, Andrest checked his gait and began to read snatches in the booklets on finance from the two game-bags which he had filled for a prolonged stay in the jail. In his brief stay in Deerport he had learned of Clinchell's blows at his friend Lesgar, which also threatened Andrest's little hoard. They had forced the bank at Deerport to close, whether temporarily or permanently none could tell. There were some questionable assets which would never be realized if old Clinchell's influence prevailed. If the bank's local debtors—sawmill men, traders, homesteaders, and others—failed to meet their obligations, the sheriff had said, the Deerport institution wouldn't pay fifty cents on the dollar.
Si Hed Jesnie had rowed the shanty-boat up the river nearly a mile, so that it would be opposite his own cabin back on the trace. He was glad to see Andrest.
"I sure thought, when old Clinchell came down on you, you'd get to stay out on the farm most of the rest of your life!" Jesnie declared. "The old man's sure getting overbearing an' mean, having his own way so much. It was getting so nobody could turn around without his say-so; an' now I hear he's in jail hisself!"
When he had told the swamp man about conditions down at Deerport, Andrest crossed to his shanty-boat. After killing two squirrels for supper, he sat down on the bow deck to think. Despite his elation at being home and free again, he was sore in his heart because of the treatment he had received without warrant or justice.
"Why did that old scoundrel try to break me up thataway?" he asked himself. "I'm not going to have my friends treated thataway on account of me. I won't let any man treat me so, neither. No man has any right to treat another man like a dog, no matter how rich he is!"
His meditations stirred the anger of the river youth as it had never been stirred before. He declined to excuse Clinchell on the plea that the planter had acted in defense of Sue Belle.
"I'm peaceable," Andrest repeated to himself over and over again. "I'm peaceable, and I mean harm to no man, but I'm not going to be hounded around any more. If old Clinchell rides out of Deerport a free man, then I'll waylay him, and I'll see if I'm going to be run around like I was a rabbit with a dog on my track, and nothing to fight back with!"
Andrest meant exactly what he said. He believed that Clinchell would find a bond in a day or two. The sheriff had seemed surprised to think that the rich planter was as long obtaining a surety as he had been; but Judge Darkin had made the bond a really formidable one, and Clinchell had no friends near at hand who could truthfully sign for twice fifty thousand dollars.
Lesgar's experience had been noised around, and there was no one who cared to rely upon any security offered by old Clinchell. His trickery in mortgaging the timber on cut-over land now kept the arbitrary old planter in jail—which was fortunate for him, in a way; for after Andrest had cleared out his nets and begun to run out his lines for the winter traps, he carried his heavy rifle and regularly inquired if Clinchell had been turned loose yet.
"I've run just about so long!" Andrest said to himself. "I've been hounded around and misused and treated low down just as long as I'm going to be. Now I'm going to hit back so's old Durm 'll feel it!"
A week after he returned from jail Andrest found a yellow girl sitting side-saddle on a mule, waiting for him at his shanty-boat landing. The girl was Delfy, Sue Belle's maid. At sight of Andrest, she sprang down from the mule and ran up to him.
"I 'low I better whisper low, Lunmer Andrest"; she began. "Hyar's a writin' fo' you-all. It come last evenin' to me, suh, an' I jes' fetched it down yeah fast as that fool mule could shake his laigs!"
Except for money envelopes from fish commission merchants and price-lists from fur-buyers, Andrest had received few letters in his life. He accepted this one with wonder. It was sealed, and was addressed to "Mr. Lunmer Andrest."
The yellow girl was uneasy. As he tore open the envelope, she dropped her voice to a low whisper.
"Sho!" she gasped. "I got to tell you-all something, suh. Old marsa, he made me write a letter to you myse'f, t'other night, an' have you meet Sue Belle out by the Blue Bayou. Then he 'lowed he'd whale me if I eveh let any one know about it. Lawzee! I jes' had to let go that!"
She turned, jumped upon the mule's back, and galloped away. Andrest looked at the letter, hardly noticing what she said. It was more astonishing than any that he had ever dreamed of reading.
Dear Lunmer;
I must write you by Delfy about those little golden pears which you gave me, they are so perfectly beautiful. I am out visiting my aunt at Provell, and she has a friend in the business of buying pearls, and he saw them.
What do you think? I just mustn't keep them. They are worth eight thousand dollars! He said he would pay that for them, and for other pearls in proportion. He was greatly interested in learning about all those pretty tricks you found in clam-shells, and said if they were anything like the golden pears, you must have a fortune in them.
So you gave me pretty little tricks, didn't you? And I just won't keep them, they are too valuable. I wish you would bring some of those little tricks out of clam-shells here so aunty's friend can see them, and see if they really are worth so much.
Don't let daddy know you are coming out here, or let anybody, for he would kill you sure as you're born. He tried to make me say I wouldn't let anybody know where I was, so he could s'prise them; but I fibbed. I wanted to write to you, anyhow, for I never wrote to a beau before. Did you know you were my beau? I did.
Be sure and come!
"Sho! She's over to Provell!" Andrest exclaimed. "Go to see her? I bet I will! Old Clinchell's in jail and can't help himself now!"
He did not wait an hour, but gathered up his two game-bags, packed as he had packed them for his stay in Deerport jail. He told Jesnie he was going away again for a few days; then he went on to the tap-line road, caught a log-train to the main line, and bought a ticket to Mendova.
As he rode eastward, he puzzled over the letter that he had received. He could not make up his mind how those little tricks, like pears of new gold, could be worth so vast a sum as eight thousand dollars. He began to wonder if this was not another fooling letter, like the one that led him to the Blue Bayou to wait all night for the girl who did not come.
The writing was much the same, and the yellow girl had confessed to writing that other note. Perhaps her confession was part of the scheme. Some yellow girls are bright, he mused, and if this letter was only another trap—well, he would take a chance, anyhow.
"If you ain't gambling at cards, you are at catching fish, or getting killed up from the bresh!" he said to himself.
He was sorry he had not brought his rifle, but he felt a reasonable safety, in view of his having a good automatic pistol, which he carried all the time because of Clinchell's enmity.
He felt homesick when the train rolled out on the great steel bridge spanning the Mississippi at Mendova. The golden river was nearly a mile wide, and it poured under the bridge, flowing down in what seemed an ever-widening channel, flashing and flickering in the sunshine. In the midst of the vast flood floated a little red shanty-boat tripping down with a man silhouetted against the sun's reflection, resting on the sweep-handles.
Andrest had tripped down the Ohio and down the Mississippi as far as New Madrid, where he crossed into Little River. The lower river was a mystery. to him. For some men Mendova was the jumping-off place, below which they dared not venture. Others stopped at Cairo, St. Louis, Vicksburg, or Memphis. A few brave and venturesome souls floated clear down to New Orleans. Still others turned off into the Red River and the Atchafalaya—and it was said that some who went down the "Chafelli" never did get to come back.
Now the mighty Mississippi, which Andrest had not seen for several years, reached up and tried to lure him, tried to draw him back to the flowing torrent that led to the jumping-off place. He had lived so long back in the swamps, on the little green St. Francis—little and green, that is, when it wasn't overflowed and yellow and forty miles wide—that he had forgotten the magic of the big river.
But there was another and a still stronger tug at his heart. He wanted to live on the Mississippi again, but there was a sunnier smile on Sue Belle's face than in all the radiant sunshine on the mile-wide Father of Waters. He told himself that he would try and reconcile the girl with the river, and that perhaps they would drop down the great stream together. He flushed at that suggestion as if it were wanton and wrong to think of her in that way.
"She sent for me to come!" he whispered to himself, that fact becoming more and more certain in his mind. "Sue Belle sent for me!"
But when he read the letter again, and saw the astonishing statement that Sue Belle had received an offer of eight thousand dollars for the two little golden pears shucked out of clam-shells, he was incredulous once more.
"Sho!" he sniffed. "That ain't so! There wouldn't anybody in the world pay that much for those little tricks! Not a king, or millionaire, or railroad president, or any such feller!"
The price made him pause in the Union Station at Mendova. Eight thousand dollars! Why, that would buy two hundred acres of ridge cotton-land!
"But I'll chance it!" he decided at last. "It might be she was just fooling me along the way girls do fool a man sometimes, plaguing him."
So he caught the train out to Provell, and arrived there in the hour before sunset. Provell was a Chickasaw Ridge town, and its hills were regular mountains to the swamp-habituated youth. There were streets that rose a hundred feet in five hundred, and the main thoroughfare looked as if it had been shaken and wrinkled up by an earthquake, it was so full of ups and downs.
"Wu-hoo!" a voice hailed him, and there was Sue Belle waving to him.
He hurried to the buggy and climbed in.
"I knew you'd come," she laughed. "And oh, Lun, you're not poor white trash any more! You're rich! Those two little golden pears—I love them so! But you must sell them, and—"
"You love them?" Andrest asked. "You think I'd take them back if you love them? Shucks!"
"They're beautiful for earrings," she said. "There are ladies who could wear them. Mr. Mier says he could sell them for you—"
"If you love them, and if there's any lady in the world can wear them. Sue Belle, they're for you to have!" he declared. "You sure are better than any spoiled town lady that ever lived!"
"Honest? You'd—you want me to have them—knowing they're—they're a fortune?" she asked.
"I'd starve before I'd let you give them back!"
"You brought those other clam-shell tricks?" she asked.
"About a peck of them," he admitted.
"I don't know," she mused. "I've been wondering—"
She drove him to the house of her aunt, who greeted him cordially. Mrs. Waspe had learned of the value of the two pearls, and she was a practical-minded widow. When she saw the "little tricks" from Andrest's two game-bags, she immediately telephoned for Mr. Mier, of whom Sue Belle had spoken.
Mier arrived within half an hour, and when he saw the quarts of pearls he uttered an exclamation.
"I never saw the like before!" he declared. "You've found a pearl pocket. Some of those baroques are worth a hundred dollars apiece."
Andrest stared, hardly able to believe what he heard. Then his mind turned back to his friends in Deerport, the men who had risked much to help him, only to find themselves attacked by old Clinchell. Worse yet, Sue Belle was Clinchell's daughter, and the friendly widow was his sister.
"I'd sure like to sell some of them," the river youth admitted when the pearl-buyer put the question.
"The best way, I think," Mier said, "is to have me sell them on commission. I'll take as many as you want to sell, and I'll charge you fifteen per cent for selling them—that is, fifteen dollars on each hundred that I can get for them."
"That sounds fair," Andrest said. "I wouldn't know what to do with them."
Two hours later Mier caught the Sunrise Special for New York. He carried a small fortune in pearls in his case, and he had left twice as many with Andrest as he carried away.