d pulled him back to
safety. "Come on."

He led the way up the bank to where the high land gave way to the
treacherous mud. Higgins essayed attempts in various directions, but
each time found the mud of unwadable depths and was dragged back to
solid ground by his employer's long arms.

"We'll try the mangrove swamp," said Payne.

Higgins' description of the swamps as one "that a bobcat couldn't get
through" was not an exaggeration. Countless mangrove trees, each with
its horde of branches curving weirdly downward and rooted beneath the
black water which covered the earth, formed a nightmarish obstacle
through which it would have been folly for any one to attempt to force
a way. Between the interwoven tops of the trees the sun found rare
openings through which its rays struck bolts of light, revealing by
contrast the infernolike gloom of the swamp's interior. In these rare
blobs of light upon the brackish water moving objects were discernible,
the fin of a fish, swimming over a shallow, the snout of a
crocodile--proof that the water was salt--and the inevitable squirming
of snakes, small and large.

"Nothing doing here either."

"No," agreed Payne. "I'll have to go up high and have a look around."

Retracing the way to the large dead tree upon which the buzzards still
roosted patiently, he removed his shoes and stockings and looked up at
the gray, tapering trunk.

"Up you go!" cried Higgins, bending his broad shoulders. Roger leaped
upon them, leaped again, caught a hold on the tree and began the
precarious climb upward. It was now near the end of the day and the
time he reached the first spikelike branch which gave him an
opportunity to rest, the sun was preparing its pyrotechnics of Florida
eventide.

Roger threw a leg over the branch and unslung his glasses. He was
above the tops of the other trees on the bank, and mud, water and
mangrove swamp lay well below. A patch of white far to the eastward in
the swamp had caught his attention even before he raised the glasses to
his eyes. Through the powerful lenses the phenomenon seemed at first
to be composed of snow-white flowers growing upon the mangrove tops,
but presently he saw that the patch was moving. Out of the sun-shot
sky a cloud of tiny specks, white as the driven snow, were fluttering
downward and settling upon the dark tops of the trees. Fascinated he
watched the spectacle until the white patch had doubled in area and
only a scatter of s