ome sort of shade had been drawn down as far as it would
come.

So Jack crawled hastily forward, bent on taking a peep if it could be
accomplished without too much risk. Having gained a position directly
under the window, he considered just how he must go about it and so
discovered that a plant of some sort--perhaps a young orange tree, was
growing alongside the shack.

Taking hold of a sprig, he gently moved it across a portion of the
opening and on finding it attracted no attention from within he next
pushed his head up with the bunch of green foliage.

This resulted in giving him a quick survey of the interior--he could see
what had come before his vision on his previous survey but at first he
failed to discover any human presence. The fact gave him a feeling of
chagrin, under the impression that Kearns might in some mysterious way
have been able to quit the rock house without being discovered and that
they had been outwitted.

In that brief period of time Jack seemed to glimpse all manner of
strange tunnels leading from the secret retreat of the smuggler to
certain exits back in the pine woods, craftily constructed for just such
an emergency as had now come to pass.

Then he suddenly changed his mind on realizing how next to impossible it
would have been to construct such underground exits when the near
presence of great Okeechobee would make digging quite out of the
question, since water must of necessity seep into any such passage and
fill it full.

Jack, looking further, had just managed to discover a leg that was
thrust into view when Perk's first rock crashed on the roof, making a
terrific noise. Following this came a burst of gunfire with the acrid
powder-smoke filling the room and making seeing next to impossible.

Jack crouched down to do a little thinking as well as listen to the
exchange of compliments between the warring forces--every loud
detonation as a lump of coquina rock fell on the roof would be followed
by its complement of rapid gunfire, just as though the man at bay was
bound to keep up his side of the battle even if he had to create a
shortage in his ammunition supply.

It was fierce work, yet bordering on the ludicrous, Jack told himself,
meanwhile wondering just how long Perk's heap of missiles would persist,
also what was bound to happen when the rock pile was gone. Doubtless the
near-demented man inside must be working up to a feverish pitch under
the impression that he was special