His readiness to shatter the door of his own lodge was evidence of his obsession, Jack firmly believed and from which he deduced the opinion that as long as his equipment held out he was ready to keep up that hot bombardment under the belief that the enemy were falling like dead leaves in the frosts of late Fall.
This being the case, Jack understood how exceedingly careful he must be not to expose even the tip of his nose, since everybody said Oswald was a most wonderful hand with firearms.
No sooner had he turned the corner of the rock shack than he made a discovery that gave him some satisfaction. At least the man inside had not considered it necessary that he extinguish the lamp for there was a certain amount of light coming from the window–only tiny lances, showing that some sort of shade had been drawn down as far as it would come.
So Jack crawled hastily forward, bent on taking a peep if it could be accomplished without too much risk. Having gained a position directly under the window, he considered just how he must go about it and so discovered that a plant of some sort–perhaps a young orange tree, was growing alongside the shack.
Taking hold of a sprig, he gently moved it across a portion of the opening and on finding it attracted no attention from within he next pushed his head up with the bunch of green foliage.
This resulted in giving him a quick survey of the interior–he could see what had come before his vision on his previous survey but at first he failed to discover any human presence. The fact gave him a feeling of chagrin, under the impression that Kearns might in some mysterious way have been able to quit the rock house without being discovered and that they had been outwitted.
In that brief period of time Jack seemed to glimpse all manner of strange tunnels leading from the secret retreat of the smuggler to certain exits back in the pine woods, craftily constructed for just such an emergency as had now come to pass.
Then he suddenly changed his mind on realizing how next to impossible it would have been to construct such underground exits when the near presence of great Okeechobee would make digging quite out of the question, since water must of necessity seep into any such passage and fill it full.
Jack, looking further, had just managed to discover a leg that was thrust into view when Perk’s first rock crashed on the roof, making a terrific noise. Following this came a burst of gunfire with the acrid powder-smoke filling the room and making seeing next to impossible.
Jack crouched down to do a little thinking as well as listen to the exchange of compliments between the warring forces–every loud detonation as a lump of coquina rock fell on the roof would be followed by its complement of rapid gunfire, just as though the man at bay was bound to keep up his side of the battle even if he had to create a shortage in his ammunition supply.