The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

the path from the bayou, but around the house on the trail that Jeems had followed. Val struggled up and looked around. The turf was torn and gouged. In the dust lay his club and Red’s revolver.
    And by the steps lay something else, a slight brown figure. Painfully the boy got to his feet and lurched across to Jeems.
    CHAPTER XII
    The Ralestones Bring Home a Reluctant Guest
    The swamper was lying on his back, his eyes closed. From a great purple welt across his forehead the blood oozed sluggishly. When Val touched him he moaned faintly.
    “Val! Are you hurt? What’s the matter?” Ricky was upon them like a whirlwind out of the bush.
    “Jeems stopped a nasty one,” her brother panted.
    “Is he—” She dropped down in the dust beside them.
    “He’s knocked out, and he’ll have a bad headache for some time, but I don’t think it’s any worse than that.”
    Ricky had pulled out a microscopic bit of handkerchief and was dabbing at the blood in an amateurish way. Jeems moaned and turned his head as if to get away from her ministrations.
    “Where’s Rupert—and Sam?” Val looked toward the path. “They were with you, weren’t they?”
    Ricky shook her head. “No. That was just what you call creating a diversion. For all I know, they’re busy at home.”
    Her brother straightened. “Then we’ve got to get out of here—fast. Those two left because they were rattled, but when they have had a chance to cool off they’ll be back.”
    “What about Jeems?”
    “Take him with us, of course. We won’t be able to manage the canoe. But you brought the outboard, so we’ll go in that and tow the canoe. We ought to have something to cover his head.” Val regarded the bleeding wound doubtfully.
    Without answering, Ricky leaned forward and began systematically going through Jeems’ pockets. In the second she found a key. Val took it from her and hobbled up the cabin steps. For a wonder, he thought thankfully, the key was the right one. The lock clicked and he went in.
    Like the clearing, the interior of the one-room shack was neat, a place for everything and everything in its place. Under the window in the far wall was a small chest of some dark polished wood. Save for its size, it was not unlike the chests the Ralestones had found in their store-room. Opposite it was a wooden cot, the covers smoothly spread. A stool, a blackened cook stove, and a solid table with an oil lamp were the extent of the furnishings. Lines of traps hung on the walls, along with the wooden boards for the stretching of drying skins, and there was a half-finished grass basket lying on top of the chest.
    Val hefted a stoneware jug. They had no time to hunt for a spring. And if this contained water, they would need it. At the resulting gurgle from within, he set it by the door and returned to rob the cot of pillow and the single coarse but clean sheet.
    Ricky tore the sheet and made a creditable job of washing and bandaging the ugly bruise. Jeems drank greedily when they offered him water but he did not seem to recognize them. In answer to Ricky’s question of how he felt, he muttered something in the swamp French of the Cajuns. But he was uneasy until Val locked the cabin door and put the key in his hand.
    “How are we going to get him to the boat?” asked Ricky suddenly.
    “Carry him.”
    “But, Val—” for the first time she looked at her brother as if she really saw him—“Val, you’re hurt!”
    “Just a little stiff,” he hastened to assure her. “Our late visitors play rather rough. We’ll manage all right. I’ll take his shoulders and you his feet.”
    They wavered drunkenly along the path. Twice Val stumbled and regained his balance just in time. Ricky had laid the pillow across their burden’s feet, declaring that she would need it when they got to the boat. Val passed the point of aching misery—when he thought that he could not shuffle forward another step—and now he came into what he had heard called “second wind.” By fixing his eyes on a tree or a bush a step or two ahead and concentrating only upon passing that one, and then that, and that, he got through without disgracing himself.
    At the bayou at last, they wriggled Jeems awkwardly into the boat. Val had no doubt that a woodsman might have done the whole job better in much less time and without a tenth of the effort they had expended. But all he ever wondered afterward was how they ever did it at all.
    It was when Ricky had made their passenger