Garman appeared not to hear; but he swung the canoe round furiously, and paddled out of sight down the river.
Higgins and Blease returned soon afterward, each reporting that the guards to the northward had departed, apparently in the same hurried fashion as those on the muck land. Payne wasted no time in an attempt to puzzle out the reason for it. If Garman had withdrawn the men to lay a new trap, it was obvious that Annette's flight had upset his plans. For the time being at least his mind was too inflamed with rage over her daring in thwarting his will, to admit the consideration of any other problem. He would be too obsessed with thought for gratifying his revengeful lust to trouble about Payne's land.
Roger related briefly the fact of Garman's visit, omitting mention of
Annette.
"Then he'll be coming back to clean us up, you think?" asked Higgins hopefully.
"I think so—I've got good reasons for believing so," replied Roger. "He won't come alone, but with a gang big enough to make sure of the job. Blease, this isn't your scrap at all, and I suspect it's going to be a real one. The ox trail is open and the mules can travel it, so you'd better take a span of them and drive your family out of danger."
Blease deliberated.
"Reckon I won't," he said at last. "Family's safe in there in the elder bush. I'll stay. Mebbe get a chance to even up with Garman."
Roger selected a high spoil bank near the center of the muck land as his post. From there he could see any one who approached from the river or from the cypress swamp. Blease took up a hidden position in the elderberry jungle, from which he could cover the open prairie toward Garman's, and Higgins secreted himself in the palmetto scrub of Flower Prairie. Higgins awaited the expected onslaught merrily; Blease was hopeful of revenge; and Roger, as he lay with his rifle ready, smiled because Annette was out of Garman's power. Wherever she was, he felt she was safe. He pictured her as she had faced Garman fearlessly two nights before—straight, strong, self-reliant—and was confident that her absence was of her own doing, and that whatever the circumstances she was free of the influence of her aunt, of her father, of the drugging magnetism of Garman, and in control of her own destiny.
As the hours dragged by and he broiled beneath the merciless sun with no sign of a move on Garman's part, his confidence waned. Had Garman discovered that Annette was not at Payne's camp? Had he discovered her whereabouts?
Roger recalled the signs of an unpremeditated flight on the part of Garman's guards, and his heart sank. Was it possible that their flight had some connection with Annette's disappearance? They were all desperate men, the most vicious Of criminals, who had fled to safety in the cypress swamps because their savagery unfitted them for existence in a civilized environment. Inflamed by moonshine whiskey they would be capable of anything, even of forgetting for the moment of Garman's dominance of them.