And now once more he had struck her swift, direct trail, only to learn that she was still one day in advance of him!
In his mental panic he remembered that his title was secure. That thought comforted him for a few moments, until he began to wonder whether the land he had acquired was really sufficient to cover a certain section of perhaps half an acre along the Causeway.
According to his calculations he had given himself ample margin in every direction, for the spot he desired to control ought to lie somewhere about midway between Lot 200 and Lot 210.
Had he miscalculated? Had she miscalculated? Why had she purchased that strip from half of Lot 210 to Lot 220?
There could be only one answer: this clever[277] and astoundingly enterprising young girl had read Valdez, had decided to take a chance, had proved her sporting spirit by backing her judgment, and had started straight as an arrow for the terrifying territory in question.
Hers had been first choice of Mr. Munsell's lots; she had deliberately chosen the numbers from half of 210 to 220. She was perfectly ignorant that he, White, had any serious intentions in Seminole County. Therefore, it had been her judgment, based on calculations from the Valdez map, that half of Lot 210 and the intervening territory including Lot 220, would be ample for her to control a certain spot—the very spot which he himself expected to control.
Either he or she had miscalculated. Which?
Dreadfully worried, he sat in silence beside his taciturn driver, gazing at the flanking forest through which the white road wound.
The only habitation they passed was fruit-drying ranch No. 7, in the wilderness—just this one sunny oasis in the solemn half-light of the woods.
White did not remember the road, although when a child he must have traversed it to the Causeway. Nor when he came in sight of the Causeway did he recognise it, where it ran[278] through a glade of high, silvery grass set sparsely with tall palmettos.