Day was just breaking and they heard some wild turkeys gobbling over in the swamp. It was a tempting sound, but they were after bigger game this morning and held to their course at a round pace. Mr. Graham had explained his plan of campaign to them on the train and they traveled in silence now, each one busy with his own thoughts.
Scott would have doubted his ability to find that bateau, but Murphy was a regular hound in the woods, and he walked to it as confidently as though he were walking down a broad highway. Now and then Scott recognized some landmark and knew that they were on the right course. He could run a compass line with the best of them but Murphy never used a compass unless he was surveying. When they came to the edge of the swamp he glanced about him a moment and nosed through the brush right on to the old bateau.
“Good work,” Mr. Graham commented, and handed him one of the two paddles he had brought along. “You take the bow and limber up your gun. You sit in the center, Burton, and keep that rifle ready. Don’t shoot till I tell you, but when you do, don’t miss.”
The little bateau was quite steady with an extra man seated in the bottom of it and the two expert paddlers sent it skimming through the water at a great rate.
“Better get out your compass, Burton. Murphy is pretty good, but we want a double check on this.”
Long before Scott thought they ought to be anywhere near their destination a cabin suddenly loomed out of the mist quite a way to the left. He pointed it out silently to Mr. Graham, who signaled to Murphy to stop paddling. Murphy gazed incredulously at the cabin and shook his head.
“There is some difference in paddling with two paddles and poling with one pole,” he whispered; “but it does not seem as though that could possibly be the place. Looks like it, though.”
Mr. Graham thought it best to investigate and they started slowly toward the cabin, keeping the trees between them and it as much as possible. There was no sign of life, but it was nerve-racking work to sneak up on the blind side of the cabin never knowing when some unseen marksman might open fire. They stopped immediately back of the cabin and listened intently for a long time. There was no sound. Cautiously they pushed the bow of the boat around the corner, and Murphy, revolver in hand, took a peep at the front. The others could tell from the relaxation of his body that it was the wrong place. They knew it long before he spoke.
Murphy slipped his revolver back into its holster and resumed his paddle. The front window was broken and the door was gone. There was no landing stage and the whole place looked deserted. Mr. Graham had a look inside. There was nothing in it and it did not seem to have been occupied for years.
“Must have been somebody else in hiding some years ago from the looks of this place,” Mr. Graham remarked. “I could not imagine any one living out in one of these swamps unless he could not live anywhere else. Well, let’s make for the next station. I hope we have better luck there.”