“Look!” he whispered. “The man ahead has stopped.”
Both of them paused in their tracks and observed the stationary light with some unrest. Dreeme glanced behind him and saw that the light which was following them was steadily approaching nearer. He remembered Walden Slater’s warning: “The muck is up to your waist on either side.”
“What shall we do?” he whispered to Walden Slater, indicating the approaching stranger in their rear. The farmer said nothing but opened his coat a bit and loosened the revolver in his belt. He glanced first at the stationary light before them and then at the approaching light behind them. After that, he spat reflectively into the swamp at his side.
“We don’t want to kick up a fuss till we locate Deborah,” he said mildly.
Even as he spoke the stationary lantern before them began to return on its tracks, to approach them from the front even as the other lantern approached them from the rear. They were caught between two fires now.
“Perhaps we can hide our faces,” whispered Dreeme. “Perhaps we can pass them as we passed those other fellows back in Briony Wood.”
“Perhaps,” said Walden Slater noncommittally.
“Shall we stand out in the swamp?” asked Dreeme suddenly.
Walden Slater shook his head.
“You’d never pull yourself out of it again,” he said.
The light before them returned ten or twelve yards on its own track, and then suddenly disappeared to the right, vanishing completely from sight. Walden Slater grunted.
“They missed the cross path,” he said. “It’s a lucky thing for us.”
He started forward, accelerating his pace as much as the hummocky road would permit, and Dreeme, suddenly relieved from the tenseness that had held him like a coiled steel spring, followed with agility. It was remarkable how refreshed he felt after that brief halt. He even forgot the lantern that was following at his heels, perhaps fifty yards behind him in the rainy gloom, a dancing midge in the deceptive air. The road dipped a bit as they proceeded forward, and soon Dreeme observed low bushes lining it, bushes that rose in height as they stumbled along over the increasing unevenness. They were entering another expanse of wooded territory, this time, without a doubt, the center of the swamp. Trees shot up out of the mist about them and the road assumed the aspect of a funnel that dwindled to nothingness before them. Walden Slater walked very slowly now inspecting the bushes at the right of the road. Soon the misty light vanished behind the climbing shrubbery and trees and the farmer cursed softly to himself.
“Whereabouts did that lantern turn in?” he inquired of the night in general. Dreeme did not attempt an answer, but went down and felt the dark ground, fumbling about for possible footprints.
“You can’t find anything that way,” said the farmer ungraciously. He blundered along close to the bushes, sometimes stepping through only to catch himself just in time from toppling into the sunken mire from which the soggy growths sprang. It was intensely dark now and they could perceive nothing before them. Dreeme, lifting up his hand a foot from his face, could not make it out. They were in an alley of small trees and bushes that met above them.
“The lantern came back from here,” muttered Walden Slater. “I’ll swear to that.”
He turned on his heel and retraced his steps.
“Look!” whispered Dreeme.
The lantern that had been following them was now less than thirty yards before them. It approached slowly, its feeble spark illuminating a small circle of milky haze. Who held it or how many were in the party could not be made out. Walden Slater stopped by the side of the path and Dreeme paused beside him. The lantern approached deliberately at such a speed as to indicate that the person carrying it was walking very slowly. The stranger, or strangers, were evidently studying the right side of the road even as Walden Slater and Dreeme had studied it, searching for an ingress into the swamp, for a concealed road that would take them off at an angle from this main path.
“If they miss the road they won’t miss us,” murmured Dreeme.
The farmer said nothing but waited mutely for what might happen. When the lantern was within ten yards of them it paused for an instant and then disappeared. Walden Slater crept forward slowly. Dreeme followed close at his heels. Reaching the spot where the lantern had disappeared the farmer went over and fumbled at the ground. The charred trunk of a tree met his hand. He grunted and stepped by it, almost sliding as he struck a sharp incline, and then caught his balance on a narrow ribbon of hard soil. The lantern had disappeared entirely, but the farmer and Dreeme, stepping tentatively, discovered that the tiny footpath they were now on curved steadily. They walked very silently now, stepping as gently as they could along the path, a path covered with the soaked dead leaves of many seasons. Their instincts told them that they were reaching the end of their journey, that the time would soon come for any action that they might plan. Dreeme felt a momentary inclination to ask the farmer what he intended to do, but he repressed it, feeling that Slater desired silence now. Like two Indians they stole forward through the bushes and small trees, disturbing only an occasional frog that croaked dismally from the swamp about them. A musty smell of rotting vegetation was in their nostrils, of green-scummed water disturbed by violent rains, of disintegrating animal life.
After some minutes walk the underbrush thinned sufficiently to permit the pale reflection of the cloudy sky to reach them. It had practically stopped raining, the unceasing drizzle dwindling into no more than an occasional flutter of large cold drops that dashed against their
