Lockwood accepted gladly. It was too dark for him to see much of the road as they topped the rising ground, but he made out the loom of immense woods against the sky. The road dipped again; mist lay thick and choking close to the ground, full of the swamp odor of rotting wood. Innumerable frogs croaked and trilled, and though it was a warm spring night the air in the hollows struck with a poisonous chill.
The road rose again. The woods fell away; they passed several negro cabins and cornfields. Then it wound through a belt of dense forest, but this time scented with the clean, sweet aroma of the long-leafed pine. The mist vanished, and he could see the crests of the big trees palmlike against the sky.
“You are a turpentine man, sir?” inquired his guide, after a long period of silence.
“Yes, I’ve been in the turpentine business,” Lockwood answered truthfully. He was afraid to ask directly about what most filled his mind, but at last he ventured to inquire:
“Has Mr. Hanna got anything to do with the camp?”
“Hanna? No, sir. I don’t reckon he knows anything ’bout turpentining. He’s just stayin’ with the Power boys. Been with ’em ever sence they come into their good luck, I reckon—brought it to ’em, some says.”
It was a new thing for McGibbon, or Hanna, to bring anybody good luck, Lockwood thought; and he asked:
“What sort of luck?”
“All kinds—money, mainly. Well, right here I’ve got to turn off. But you keep right straight down the road, and you’ll come to the post office in ’bout a quarter mile. They’ll all be asleep, I expect, but you kin roust ’em out. They won’t mind—no, sir!”
The road indeed forked here, and the buggy proceeded down the other branch, as Lockwood started to walk in the indicated direction. A moon was just beginning to show above the pines now, and he could see a little more distinctly. Presently he saw a group of three or four middle-sized buildings close to the road.