CHAPTER X
They came along the pathway, holding in the leashed dogs, for evidently they did not trust to their own powers to keep up with free-running beasts. There were eight or ten men, with as many hounds. These were making a fearful racket. They nosed us and before they got abreast of us were poking wildly aside from the safety of the tussocked path of solid earth. The men yelled at each other and made the usual human amount of unnecessary uproar.
How I scorned and despised them!
One carried a grotesque-looking apparatus on his back which I supposed to be a kind of enlarged walkie-talkie. The germ of a plan grew. I marked this fellow for my own.
When they drew opposite I charged out of hiding with a savage bellow. The dogs, not mankillers, were baffled for a moment, and the men were taken wholly by surprise. I gripped the front of the walkie-talkie operator's jacket and hit him in the belly; with the new adroitness lent my muscles by race memory, the punch had the force of a giraffe's kick. Ignoring the other men, I dragged him off to the side and laid him on his face among the lush weeds.
Others of the Old Companions were fighting with them now. None of us had weapons—indeed, they would only have hampered us and blunted our murder-lust. I heard the futile spat of a revolver over the barking and yelling. Two men came at me, drawing their guns. I reached out, laughing, and took them by the necks and smashed their heads together. My hands and forearms were spattered with blood and brains. I let the corpses fall and looked for other adversaries.
They were all dead, even the dogs. Seven of my brothers watched me expectantly, including the yellow-haired chief. I went over to the man whom I had hit in the belly.
"Can any of you work that instrument?"
They shook their heads. So I took it off his back—it was held by shoulder straps—and rolled him over. I splashed green-slimed water in his face. After a while he blinked and gasped.
"How does this thing work?" I asked. He looked at me, then at the malevolent faces of the Old Companions. In a whispering croak he told me how to manipulate the transmitter.
"How many other parties are searching the swamp?"
"One."
"What's the leader's name?"
His eyes flickered for a minute. "Bill Jones," he said weakly. I doubled my fist and regarded his face. After a minute he said, "All right. It's Sam D'Peero."
"Where are they?"
"Took another trail. Off west, I think."
I killed him then. "Deep hole near here?" I asked yellow-hair.
He grinned, shouldered a corpse and picked up a dead hound by its collar. We followed him, myself dragging two men by the belts so as not to get any bloodier than I was. We found a big reeking boghole and threw them into it. Going back, we destroyed the signs of the battle. Then I picked up the walkie-talkie, switched it on.
"Sam!" I shouted, pitching my voice high and filling it with terror. "Sam, can you hear me? Oh, my God, we're trapped! The dogs run us into the swamp!" I waited a moment, heard someone say faintly and tinnily, "Johnny, what's the matter?"
"I—oh Lord, I'm sinking! I can't hold onto this branch much longer. Sam, Sam! I think the Cuff guy came and fell into this hole. You can't tell it ain't solid, and the dogs followed him and all the others—oh Sam, help me!"
"Explain, Johnny!" said the instrument. "What's wrong with the others?"
"I tell you we fell in, Sam! We were all bunched and this stuff's like quicksand. I'm—" I broke off, shrieked, gurgled horridly, and then picked up the walkie-talkie and heaved it deep into the swamp.
Yellow-hair laughed. "It might not put them off, but it'll confuse them no end. If you're worried about them finding the house, don't. A cross between a bloodhound and a private eye couldn't locate it. Come on." He patted my arm. "Let's go home."