he?"

"Davis."

"What! The fellow they tried to get on the Cormorant?"

"Exactly."

"Is he some sort of a detective?"

"I suspect so. Willy ain't much on the tell. He says that man has got
Uncle Sam behind him! And this Davis sends us serious word that we're
to keep away from Garman's men. Whatever happens we mustn't get into a
fight. We've got to stick right in camp and play safe, or we'll spoil
two years' work for Uncle Sam. The first dark night--to-morrow night
probably--it will be over, whatever it is, and Davis will come here and
explain. That's what Willy High Pockets said, and if you'd seen him
tell it you'd know it was a darn serious business. By the great smoked
fish, Payne, there's a big game being played round here. I feel it in
my bones. And I'm sore because I haven't got a finger in the pie."

"What can it be?"

"You got me. But whoever this Davis man is he's got Willy so he isn't
afraid of Garman. That means something big."

"We'll give Davis to-night and to-morrow night," said Roger, after
pondering the matter a moment. "After that----"

"Hell's delight! And I almost hope that Davis falls down on whatever
he's doing."

On the narrow there was no sign to indicate that Davis or any one else
was concerned in the affairs of the district. The grim guards on the
muck lands held their stations. It was apparent that they had orders
not to leave the tract or to seek trouble, but to be ready to shoot and
shoot accurately at any one venturing to trespass. Blease scouted
northward on the ox-team trail and reported that Coon Hammock was still
occupied. Payne himself went through the elderberry and saw grass
jungle and through his glasses saw men guarding the approach to the
Devil's Playground.

The strain was beginning to tell on all three men in the clearing.
Each hour now seemed a day, each sight of a Garman man was a torture.

"It ain't human," muttered Blease. "I can't stand it."

Higgins lay flat on his back in his tent, staring up at the canvas.

"It had better be a dark night to-night," he said, with a grim smile.
Roger silently agreed. And he realized that this was what Garman had
foreseen and planned for when he digged the pit--the sense of
imprisonment and the desperate attempt to break out, regardless of
consequences.

"He's too smart to be just a man, Garman is," droned Blease; but Roger
stopped him.

"He's nothing but a man; nothing but a man who likes to hurt. D