URM CLINCHELL sat on the high bank of the St. Francis River, in the Dark Bend swamps, opposite a little rippling shoal between two long, curving stillwaters. Across from him was a wide, white sand-bar, along the back of which was a growth of willow-trees, and beyond which was the dark brake timber. His feet dangled down the steep, caving bank, and his eyes turned restlessly up and down the river.
Across his lap rested a repeating rifle. On his head was a broad-brimmed black hat. His upper lip was smooth-shaven, while his chin carried a gray rope six inches long and two inches in circumference. His bushy eyebrows were heavier than many a mustache. His eyes were of a stern, pale brown—paler and grimmer than ever just now.
His business there was to kill a man. The man to be killed was Lunmer Andrest, an impudent young pup of a swamp-angel who didn't take Durm Clinchell as seriously as some others did, in spite of all that the old man had done and been in the Dark Bend swamps.
"Now if I hadn't never killed anybody, he would have been excused," Clinchell swore to himself; "but I'd killed fellers before. Men that don't mind their own business has naturally got to be killed up—he knows that!"
"Hands up, Mr. Clinchell!" a stern voice hailed the thinker from behind. "Don't you touch that gun, Mr. Clinchell, or I'll just naturally plumb you through the liver an' lights!"
The old man's hands went up. Andrest had failed to come down the Stillwater in his canoe, to be shot at seventy yards, according to program. He had landed up-stream, around the bend, and crept down a dry bayou. Taking advantage of the soft, swampy ground, he had obtained the bushwhack advantage and caught his enemy unawares.
"Get up!" Andrest ordered. "Let that gun slip onto the bank, or into the river, I don't care which, only don't touch it—no, sir!"
Clinchell did as ordered. He left the rifle lying on the bank and halted ten yards away. Andrest picked it up, and then marched his prisoner along the bank to where a canoe was tied by a bit of trot-line to a snag root in the eddy of the sand-bar at the head of the Stillwater up-stream.
"I 'low I'll take you for a canoe-ride, Mr. Clinchell," the young man observed politely. "You hadn't any call to layway me, and—"
"I told you to keep clear and shet of my gal Sue Belle!" the old man exploded wrathfully. "Didn't I fair-warn ye, and didn't—"
"Sue Belle 'lowed if I didn't get to see her, somebody else would, an' so I just naturally 'lowed I'd get to see her, Mr. Clinchell. You've been disturbin' things round here enough. I'm going to take you down to Deerport and have you bound to keep the peace. Then, if you 'low to shoot me, or kill me up, it 'll be illegal. Get into that canoe, now!"
Old Clinchell choked, but he sat down in the bow of the canoe with his hands clasped across his shins. This was a new experience. He had always surrendered honorably after killing his man, but now he was captured before he could carry out his threat to shoot young Lunmer Andrest.
"Yes, sir!" Andrest continued. "I 'low I'll bond you to keep the peace!"
Accordingly the canoe started down the St. Francis, paddled by Andrest, who had a rifle on each side of him. It was fourteen miles to Deerport, but the trip was made quickly. Durm Clinchell's only possible chance to escape was to upset the canoe, dive deep, and thus elude his captor. The prisoner would have tried it but for a statement made by Andrest at the very start.
"You keep those hip-boots on, Mr. Clinchell!" he had said. "I've took mine off. If you upsot this canoe, with those hip-boots on, they'll suck you right down into the mud, sure. I'm barefooted, an' I'll float. I'll go back up an' marry Sue Belle, an' we'll spend good cotton and gum-log money—yes, sir!"
At that boast old Clinchell's ears turned bright red, and his neck looked sunburnt, for he believed that it was true. He believed a good many things that weren't so, that old St. Francis River plantation-owner. On the other hand, he didn't believe some things that were true. For instance, he never would have credited Sue Belle with saving him from the wrath of Lunmer Andrest.
"Lunmer," she.had declared, "if you git killed, it's your fault; but if my daddy—dear old daddy!—gits shot up, I'll see that you git hung, shore as you're borned! Course I like you, Lunmer, but you mustn't kill my old daddy—no, indeedy!"
"But he's threatening to kill me!" Lunmer protested.
"Suttinly—ain't you tryin' to steal his gal?" she asked blandly. "Wouldn't you want to kill anybody in the world that tried to steal me?"
"Course I would!"
"Then why shouldn't my old daddy want to kill you?" she demanded triumphantly.