CHAPTER 2 ALERTING ALL CARS

Penny was no coward; neither was she foolhardy.

A second look at the bearded stranger, and her mind telegraphed the warning: “This man means business! Better play along.”

The man fingered his gun. “Git goin’ now!” he ordered sharply. “And don’t come back!”

In the boat, Louise already had reached nervously for the oars. She wet her fingers and whistled for Bones, but the dog, off on a fascinating scent, had been completely swallowed up by the rank undergrowth.

“Ye heard me?” the stranger demanded. “I be a patient man, but I hain’t speakin’ agin.”

Penny hesitated, half tempted to defy the swamper.

“Let Bones go,” Louise called. “Come on.”

Thus urged, Penny backed toward the skiff. Stumbling over a vine, she caught her balance and scrambled awkwardly into the boat.

Louise pushed off with the oars, stroking fast until they were well out into the channel. Only then did she give vent to anger.

“That mean man! Now we’ve lost Bones for good. We’ll never get him back.”

“Maybe we will.”

“How? We’ll never dare row back there today. He’s still watching us.”

Penny nodded, knowing that anything she might say would carry clearly over the water.

The stranger had not moved since the skiff had pulled away. Like a grim statue, he stood in the shadow of a towering oak, gazing straight before him.

“Who does he think he is anyhow?” Louise demanded, becoming bolder as they put greater distance between themselves and the island. “Does he own this swamp?”

“He seems to think he does—or at least this section of it. Don’t feel too badly about Bones, Lou. We’ll come back tomorrow and find him.”

“Tomorrow may be too late. He’ll be hopelessly lost, or maybe that man will shoot him! Oh, Penny, Bones was such a cute little dog. He always brought me the morning paper, and he knew so many clever tricks.”

“It was all my fault for insisting upon landing there. Lou, I feel awful.”

“You needn’t.”

Louise forced herself into a cheerful tone. “Maybe we’ll find him again or he’ll come home. If not—well—” her voice broke.

Both girls fell into a gloomy silence. Water swished gently against the skiff as Louise sent it forward with vicious stabs of the oars.

With growing distaste, Penny eyed the mass of flowers in the bottom of the boat. Already the blooms were wilting.

“I wish we never had come to the swamp today, Lou. It was a bum idea.”

“No, we had a good time until we met that man. Please, Penny, it wasn’t your fault.”

Penny drew up her knees for a chin rest and gloomily watched her chum row. A big fish broke the surface of the still water. Across the channel, the sun had become a low-hanging, fiery-red disc. But Penny focused her eyes on the receding island.

“Lou,” she said, “there were two men on the point. Did you hear what they were saying?”

“No, only a murmur of voices.”

Her curiosity aroused, Louise waited patiently for more information. Penny plucked at a floating hyacinth plant and then added:

“I can’t quite dope it out, Lou. One of those men seemed to be asking the other to hide him, and there was talk of evading the law—also a threat to ‘get’ someone.”

“Us probably.”

“No, until you called Bones, they apparently didn’t know anyone was around. Who could those men be?”

“Crooks, I’ll bet,” Louise said grimly. “Thank goodness, we’re almost out of the swamp now. I can see the clearing ahead and a little tumbledown house and barn.”

“Not Trapper Joe’s place?” Penny asked, straightening up to look.

The skiff had swung into faster water.

“We’re not that far yet,” Louise replied as she rested on the oars a moment. “Don’t you remember—it’s a house we passed just after we rented the boat.”

“So it is. My mind is only hitting on half its cylinders today. Anyway, we’re out of the swamp. Let’s pull up and ask for a drink of cool water.”

With a sigh of relief, Louise guided the skiff to a sagging, make-shift dock close to the farmhouse.

Some distance back from the river, enclosed by a broken fence, stood an unpainted, two-story frame house.

Beyond the woodshed rose a barn, its roof shingles badly curled. At the pump near the house, a middle-aged woman in loose-fitting faded blue dress, vigorously scrubbed a copper wash boiler.

She straightened quickly as the skiff grated against the dock.

“Howdy,” she greeted the girls at their approach. Her tone lacked cordiality.

“Good afternoon,” said Penny. “May we have a drink at the pump?”

“Help yourself.”

The woman jerked a gnarled hand toward a gourd cup attached to the pump with a string. She studied the girls intently, almost suspiciously.

Louise and Penny drank only a few sips, for the water was warm and of unpleasant taste.

“You’uns be strangers hereabouts,” the woman observed.

“Yes, we come from Riverview,” Penny replied.

“You hain’t been in the swamp?”

“Why, yes,” answered Louise, eager to relate details of their adventure. “We gathered flowers, and then met a horrid man with red whiskers! He drove us away from the island before I could get my dog.”

The woman gazed at the girls in an odd way.

“Sarved you’uns right to be driv off,” she said in a grim voice. “The swamp’s no place fer young gals. You might o’ been et by a beast or bit by a snake.”

“I don’t believe the man we saw was much worried about that,” Penny said dryly. “I wonder who he was?”

The farm woman shrugged and began to scour the copper boiler again. After a moment she looked up, fixing Penny with a stern and unfriendly eye.

“Let me give you a pocketful o’ advice,” she said. “Don’t fret that purty head o’ yourn about the swamp. And don’t go pokin’ yer nose into what ain’t none o’ your consarn. If I was you, I wouldn’t come back. These here parts ain’t none too health fer strangers, even young ’uns.”

“But I want my dog,” Louise insisted. “He’s lost on the island.”

“Hain’t likely you’ll ever see that dawg agin. And if you know what’s good ’n smart, you’uns won’t go back there agin.”

Having delivered herself of this advice, the woman turned her back and went on with her work. Made increasingly aware of her hostility, Penny and Louise said goodbye and returned to the skiff.

As they shoved off, they could see that the woman was watching them.

“We’re certainly popular today,” Penny remarked when the skiff had floated on toward Trapper Joe’s rental dock. “My, was she a sour pickle!”

Ten minutes later, as the girls brought up at Trapper Joe’s place, they saw the lean old swamper standing near the dock, skinning a rabbit. His leathery, weather-beaten face crinkled into smiles.

“Sure am glad yer back safe an sound,” he greeted them cheerfully. “After I let you take the skiff I got to worryin’ fer fear you’d go too fur and git lost. ’Pears like you had good sense after all.”

“The only thing we lost was my dog,” Louise declared, stepping out on the dock. “Bones is gone for good, I guess.”

She quickly told the old trapper what had happened on the island. He listened attentively, making no comment until she had finished.

“’Pears like you must have run afoul of Ezekiel Hawkins,” he said then. “Leastwise, he’s the only one hereabouts with a grizzly red beard.”

“Is he a crook or a fugitive from the law?” Penny demanded.

“Not that nobody ever heard of. Ezekiel and his two boys, Hod and Coon, tend purty much to their own business. But they don’t go fer strangers hangin’ around.”

“And do they own the island?”

“Not an inch of it—all that swamp’s government land. Can’t figure why, if ’twas Ezekiel, he’d drive you away from there. Unless—”

“Unless what?” Penny asked as the trapper fell silent.

“Jest a’thinkin’. Well, I’ll keep an eye out fer the dog and maybe have a talk with Ezekiel.”

Penny and Louise thanked the swamper and paid him for use of the boat. Gathering up the flowers they had picked, they started toward the road where they had parked Penny’s coupe.

The trapper walked with them to the front gate.

“By the way,” Penny remarked, “who is the woman on the farm just above here?”

“At the edge of the swamp? That’s the Ezekiel Hawkins’ place.”

“Not the farm of that bearded man we met today!”

“Reckon so.”

“We stopped there for a drink and talked to a tall, dark-haired woman. She was rather short with us.”

“That would be Manthy, Ezekiel’s wife. She’s sharp-tongued, Manthy is, and not too friendly. Works hard slavin’ and cookin’ fer them two no-good boys of hers.”

Penny and Louise asked no more questions, but again saying goodbye to Trapper Joe, went on down the dusty road.

Once they were beyond earshot, Penny observed: “What a joke on us, Lou! There we were, complaining to Mrs. Hawkins about her own husband! No wonder she was short with us.”

“We had good reason to complain.”

“Yes we did,” Penny soberly agreed. “Of course, we can’t be dead certain the bearded man was Ezekiel Hawkins. But Manthy did act unpleasant about it.”

“If it weren’t for Bones, I’d never set foot near this place again! Oh, I hope he finds his way home.”

The girls had reached Penny’s car, parked just off the sideroad. A clock on the dashboard warned them it was after five o’clock.

“Jeepers!” Penny exclaimed, snapping on the ignition. “I’ll have to step on it to get dressed in time for the banquet! And I still have the tables to decorate!”

A fast drive over the bumpy sideroad brought the girls to the main paved highway. Much later, as they neared Riverview, Penny absently switched on the shortwave radio.

A number of routine police calls came through. Then the girls were startled to hear the dispatcher at headquarters say:

“Attention all scout cars! Be on the alert for escaped convict, Danny Deevers alias Spike Devons. Five-feet nine, blue eyes, brown hair. Last seen in state prison uniform. Believed heading for Riverview.”

“Danny Deevers!” Penny whispered, and quickly turned the volume control. “I repeat,” boomed the dispatcher’s voice. “Be on lookout for Danny Deevers, a dangerous escaped criminal. Believed heading this way.”