"Shut up!" growled the man. "Git in the house."
"Put down your gun," shouted Payne. "Tell me your trouble. My boys been bothering you?"
"You're a-botherin' me," retorted the cracker. "You cal'late to run me off my place here. Well, I ain't a-going."
Payne looked about the clearing and saw that here, hidden from all the world in the dense elder growth, the squatter had attempted and succeeded in making a primitive sort of home. Fish nets and traps, otter and coon skins, hung on the walls of the shack. In the clearing was a cultivated patch of the Seminole "contie" root, which could be ground into flour, and a scattering of domestic vegetables. On a few stunted trees were a few dried-up oranges; and on the branches of one of the larger trees was hung a swing fashioned from tough-fibered creepers. On one side of the rude shack a patch of moon vine was being trained along the wall.
"My name is Payne, neighbor," said Roger presently.
The squatter eyed him suspiciously for a long while. At last he dropped the rifle in the hollow of his arm, keeping a ready thumb on the hammer.
"Mine's Blease," he said at last.
Roger regarded the man thoughtfully for a long time. To his surprise he perceived that Blease was not at all of the unfavorable type he had expected to find squatting in such a place. The man's hair was long and ragged, his beard likewise, and he was poorly nourished and clad; but Roger had lived enough in the open to learn how deceptive are external appearances in showing the true character of a man. As he looked at Blease, meeting the other's hard eyes, he sensed the true worth of the man hiding beneath the guise of a shiftless squatter. As for the woman, it was obvious that she was Blease's superior.
"Tell me, Blease," said Payne suddenly, "How long have you been living on this land?"
"'Bout two years," replied the squatter after a long pause.