Freckles spoke.
“It's mighty risky for you to be crossing the swamp alone,” he said. “I'm surprised that the Bird Woman would be letting you try it. I know it's a little farther, but it's begging you I am to be going back by the trail. That's bad enough, but it's far safer than the swamp.”
The Angel laughed merrily.
“Oh stop your nonsense!” she cried. “I'm not afraid! Not in the least! The Bird Woman didn't want me to try following a path that I'd been over only once, but I was sure I could do it, and I'm rather proud of the performance. Now, don't go babying! You know I'm not afraid!”
“No,” said Freckles gently, “I know you're not; but that has nothing to do with the fact that your friends are afraid for you. On the trail you can see your way a bit ahead, and you've all the world a better chance if you meet a snake.”
Then Freckles had an inspiration. He turned to Jack imploringly.
“You tell her!” he pleaded. “Tell her to go by the trail. She will for you.”
The implication of this statement was so gratifying to Black Jack that he seemed again to expand and take on increase before their very eyes.
“You bet!” exclaimed Jack. And to the Angel: “You better take Freckles' word for it, miss. He knows the old swamp better than any of us, except me, and if he says 'go by the trail,' you'd best do it.”
The Angel hesitated. She wanted to recross the swamp and try to reach the horse. She knew Freckles would brave any danger to save her crossing the swamp alone, but she really was not afraid, while the trail added over a mile to the walk. She knew the path. She intended to run for dear life the instant she felt herself from their sight, and tucked in the folds of her blouse was a fine little 32-caliber revolver that her father had presented her for her share in what he was pleased to call her military exploit. One last glance at Freckles showed her the agony in his eyes, and immediately she imagined he had some other reason. She would follow the trail.
“All right,” she said, giving Jack a thrilling glance. “If you say so, I'll return by the trail to please you. Good-bye, everybody.”
She lifted the bushes and started toward the entrance.
“You damned fool! Stop her!” growled Wessner. “Keep her till we're loaded, anyhow. You're playing hell! Can't you see that when this thing is found out, there she'll be to ruin all of us. If you let her go, every man of us has got to cut, and some of us will be caught sure.”
Jack sprang forward. Freckles' heart muffled in his throat. The Angel seemed to divine Jack's coming. She was humming a little song. She deliberately stopped and began pulling the heads of the curious grasses that grew all around her. When she straightened, she took a step backward and called: “Ho! Freckles, the Bird Woman wants that natural history pamphlet returned. It belongs to a set she is going to have bound. That's one of the reasons we put it under the box. You be sure to get them as you go home tonight, for fear it rains or becomes damp with the heavy dews.”
“All right,” said Freckles, but it was in a voice that he never had heard before.
Then the Angel turned and sent a parting glance at Jack. She was overpoweringly human and bewitchingly lovely.
“You won't forget that ride and the red tie,” she half asserted, half questioned.
Jack succumbed. Freckles was his captive, but he was the Angel's, soul and body. His face wore the holiest look it ever had known as he softly re-echoed Freckles' “All right.” With her head held well up, the Angel walked slowly away, and Jack turned to the men.
“Drop your damned staring and saw wood,” he shouted. “Don't you know anything at all about how to treat a lady?” It might have been a question which of the cronies that crouched over green wood fires in the cabins of Wildcat Hollow, eternally sucking a corncob pipe and stirring the endless kettles of stewing coon and opossum, had taught him to do even as well as he had by the Angel.
The men muttered and threatened among themselves, but they began working desperately. Someone suggested that a man be sent to follow the Angel and to watch her and the Bird Woman leave the swamp. Freckles' heart sank within him, but Jack was in a delirium and past all caution.
“Yes,” he sneered. “Mebby all of you had better give over on the saw and run after the girl. I guess not! Seems to me I got the favors. I didn't see no bouquets on the rest of you! If anybody follows her, I do, and I'm needed here among such a pack of idiots. There's no danger in that baby face. She wouldn't give me away! You double and work like forty, while me and Wessner will take the axes and begin to cut in on the other side.”
“What about the noise?” asked Wessner.
“No difference about the noise,” answered Jack. “She took us to be from McLean's gang, slick as grease. Make the chips fly!”
So all of them attacked the big tree.
Freckles sat on one of his benches and waited. In their haste to fell the tree and load it, so that the teamsters could start, and leave them free to attack another, they had forgotten to rebind him.
The Angel was on the trail and safely started. The cold perspiration made Freckles' temples clammy and ran in little streams down his chest. It would take her more time to follow the trail, but her safety was Freckles' sole thought in urging her to go that way. He tried to figure on how long it would require to walk to the carriage. He wondered if the Bird Woman had unhitched. He followed the Angel every step of the way. He figured on when she would cross the path of the clearing, pass the deep pool where his “find-out” frog lived, cross Sleepy Snake Creek, and reach the carriage.
He wondered what she would say to the Bird Woman, and how long it would take them to pack and start. He knew now that they would understand, and the Angel would try to get the Boss there in time to save his wager. She could never do it, for the saw was over half through, and Jack and Wessner cutting into the opposite side of the tree. It appeared as if they could fell at least that tree, before McLean could come, and if they did he lost his wager.
When it was down, would they rebind him and leave him for Wessner to wreak his insane vengeance on, or would they take him along to the next tree and dispose of him when they had stolen all the timber they could? Jack had said that he should not be touched until he left. Surely he would not run all that risk for one tree, when he had many others of far greater value marked. Freckles felt that he had some hope to cling to now, but he found himself praying that the Angel would hurry.
Once Jack came to Freckles and asked if he had any water. Freckles arose and showed him where he kept his drinking-water. Jack drank in great gulps, and as he passed back the bucket, he said: “When a man's got a chance of catching a fine girl like that, he ought not be mixed up in any dirty business. I wish to God I was out of this!”
Freckles answered heartily: “I wish I was, too!”
Jack stared at him a minute and then broke into a roar of rough laughter.
“Blest if I blame you,” he said. “But you had your chance! We offered you a fair thing and you gave Wessner his answer. I ain't envying you when he gives you his.”
“You're six to one,” answered Freckles. “It will be easy enough for you to be killing the body of me, but, curse you all, you can't blacken me soul!”
“Well,
