For nearly three hours the boat wound in and out this ghastly labyrinth of swamp and bayou and jungle. It was certain now that the enemy was somewhere in the delta, but it seemed to Lockwood that anybody with the slightest cunning need never be caught in that place at all.
The other men, bred on the Alabama as they were, were almost as much at a loss as himself. Not one of them had ever explored the delta so deeply; perhaps no other white man’s boat at all had threaded it so far. Time and again they had to turn back; continually they diverged into fresh, mysterious tangles. They came out once more into the Alabama, went clear around the tip of the “delta” and some way up the Tombigbee, then cut into a wide, briskly flowing stream that seemed to connect the two rivers.
It really brought them to the Alabama again. A bayou diverged from it parallel to the latter river, a hundred feet of swamp between them. The bayou crooked like an elbow; it was impossible to see far, and Tom steered the boat into it. Both banks were grown up with thickets of titi and bay tree, tangled with rattan and trumpet flower, and they thumped slowly down the muddy water, peering ahead to see around the bend.
They were just at the tip of the elbow, when Ferrell threw up his arm, pointing at the shore alongside.
“What’s that yonder?” he yelled. “Stop her—it’s——”
Lockwood’s startled eye caught the loom of something gray and houselike behind the screen of shrubbery. He saw the unmistakable varnished glimmer of the motor boat; and then all the greenery suddenly spurted smoke.
The air was full of a whiz and tingle. One—two bullets ripped the boat’s side. The Fenway boy reeled over, clutching his arm that ran blood. Ferrell let off both barrels of his shotgun wildly, and Tom, putting on full speed, ran ahead out of the storm and down the bayou. Dropping revolver shots followed them, falling astern. A hundred yards down Power eased the boat, drawing close inshore for shelter.
“Well, we’ve done found ’em!” he said grimly.
The boat had two holes through her, but Fenway was the only casualty. His was not a serious wound, but it was his right arm, and he was henceforth out of the fighting.
“They’d ’a’ let us run right by ef we hadn’t seen ’em,” said Ferrell. “Just one second, I seen the boat plain.”