He had grave doubts whether they would stay awake, but the next morning they swore that they had not closed an eye and had heard no disturbance. An examination showed no gum had been taken, but the wheelbarrow had vanished. Some one had visited the woods that night.

However, Joe thought that the thieves had probably been frightened away, and the next night he left the woods alone, with some uneasiness. It turned out all right, however; no cups were found missing, and as the following night had the same result Joe’s fear began to wear off.

The weather had remained hot, and the run of gum had been excellent. Within a few days there was enough for “dipping,” or collecting the contents of the cups. Mule teams came down from the camp with the dip-buckets and barrels, which were set down at intervals through the woods, and in the afternoon the dipping gang came in, and began the heaviest, hardest work of the turpentine harvest.

The wooden dip-buckets weighed thirty pounds even when empty, but the dipper moved at a trot from tree to tree, deftly scooping out the thick, whitish gum from the cups with a wooden paddle. When the bucket was full he poured it into the nearest barrel, and by night many of the barrels were nearly half full.

Joe was greatly delighted with this result, but when the dippers came in the next morning they found that some one had forestalled them. Fifty or sixty cups were missing from the trees, all of them ones that had been nearly full. A prolonged search failed to find any of them. Joe sent a hurry call to the camp for more cups. Mr. Burnam was not there, but the foreman managed to collect a few dozen, and Joe replaced as many of the missing ones as he could.

He had feared greatly for the safety of the partly-filled dip-barrels standing about the orchard, but an examination showed them all untouched. Perhaps they had been too heavy to handle; but Joe felt that they would have to be guarded in the future until they were hauled back to the still.

This mysterious lawlessness was intensely irritating and disturbing. It occurred to Joe that the thieves might possibly have come in a boat from the other side of the river, and he rode down to the shore to reconnoiter for tracks.

A heavy growth of willow, titi, and sycamore made a dense belt along most of the waterside. Usually he could not see the river until he was within twenty feet of it, and he rode along, peering through the thickets, scrutinizing the ground for tracks, till he came to a deep, narrow bayou that ran inland for about fifty feet. A few willows grew along its banks, and through them Joe spied the black houseboat that he had seen floating down the river several days before.

CHAPTER VI
DISASTER

For a minute or two he sat on his horse and scanned the black boat. It was certainly the boat he had seen before, and he wondered how she had been brought back against the stream. She must have hired a tow from the steamboat, and he wondered what had been the inducement. As before, no one was in sight. No smoke rose from the stovepipe that projected through the roof, and the door upon the little end deck was closed.