Throughout the length and breadth of this swamp, about a mile apart, there were curious mounds rising ten or twelve feet above the surrounding marsh. All these mounds were round in shape and flat on the top.
Some of them were not more than a hundred feet in diameter, while others were large, containing half an acre of land. They had been built a hundred years before by the Indians—and served a very practical purpose. When the water flooded the swamp in the autumn the wild animals took refuge on these mounds. The Indians penetrated the jungle in their canoes and visited each mound, easily slaying the deer and bears, and thus procuring their winter supply of meat.
The Gaitskill hog-camp occupied the largest of these mounds, the cabin standing in the center of a two-acre plot. The flat top of the mound had been kept cleared of timber, but the jungle encroached to the very edge.
The posse galloped into this clearing, and Colonel Gaitskill dismounted from his horse.
“You darkies stay here!” he commanded. “I’ll see whether Diada is in the cabin.”
The cabin was empty. All of Isaiah’s smoked sausage and hams had disappeared. Little Bit’s mandolin, with the strings broken, lay in the corner of the room, and a part of Mrs. Gaitskill’s silk kimono hung from a splinter on the wall, showing how it had been torn off. From a nail on the wall hung a long lasso.
Taking down the rope Gaitskill walked out again to the negroes.
“She’s not here, men,” he announced. “We’ll have to hunt her in the swamp.”
Adjusting the rope to his saddle-horn he mounted and sat for a moment debating his next move.
Then Diada emerged from the jungle and stood at the edge of the clearing, looking curiously at the troop of men.