LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER I

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      "THIS is the only trail into the swamp, mister." Steve Harrison's guide pointed a long finger down the narrow path which wound in and out among the live-oaks and cypresses. Harrison shrugged his massive shoulders. The surroundings were not inviting, with the long shadows of the late afternoon sun reaching dusky fingers into the dim recesses among the moss-hung trees.

      "You ought to wait till mornin'," opined the guide, a tall lanky man in cowhide boots and sagging overall. "It's gittin' late, and we don't want to git catched in the swamp after night."

      "I can't wait, Rogers," answered the detective. "The man I'm after might get clean away by morning."

      "He'll have to come out by this path," answered Rogers as they swung along. "Ain't no other way in or out. If he tries to push through to high ground on the other side, he'll shore fall into a bottomless bog, or git et by a gator. There's lots of them. I reckon he ain't much used to swamps?"

      "I don't suppose he ever saw one before. He's city-bred."

      "Then he won't das't leave the beaten path," confidently predicted Rogers.

      "On the other hand, he might, not realizing the danger," grunted Harrison.

      "What'd you say he done?" pursued Rogers, directing a jet of tobacco juice at a beetle crawling through the dark loam.

      "Knocked an old Chinaman in the head with a meat-cleaver and stole his life-time savings—ten thousand dollars, in bills of a thousand each. The old man left a little granddaughter who'll be penniless if this money isn't recovered. That's one reason I want to get this rat before he loses himself in a bog. I want to recover that money, for the kid."

      "And you figure the Chinaman seen goin' down this path a few days ago was him?"

      "Couldn't be anybody else," snapped Harrison. "We've hounded him half way across the continent, cut him off from the borders and the ports. We were closing in on him when he slipped through, somehow. This was about the only place left for him to hide. I've chased him too far to delay now. If he drowns in the swamp, we'll probably never find him, and the money will be lost, too. The man he murdered was a fine, honest old Chinaman. This fellow, Woon Shang, is bad all the way through."

      "He'll run into some bad folks down here," ruminated Rogers. "Nothin' but niggers live in these swamplands. They ain't regular darkies like them that live outside. These came here fifty or sixty years back—refugees from Haiti, or somewhere. You know we ain't far from the coast. They're yeller- skinned, and don't hardly ever come out of the swamp. They keep to theirselves, and they don't like strangers. What's that?"

      They were just rounding a bend in the path, and something lay on the ground ahead of them—something black, and dabbled with red, that groaned and moved feebly.

      "It's a nigger!" exclaimed Rogers. "He's been knifed."

      It took no expert to deduce that. They bent over him and Rogers voiced profane recognition. "Why, I know this feller! He ain't no swamp rat. He's Joe Corley, that razored up another nigger at a dance last month and lit out. Bet he's been hidin' in the swamp ever since. Joe! Joe Corley!"

      The wounded man groaned and rolled up his glassy eyes; his skin was ashy with the nearness of approaching death.

      "Who stabbed you, Joe?" demanded Rogers.

      "De Swamp Cat!" The gasp was scarcely audible. Rogers swore and looked fearfully about him, as if expecting something to spring on them from the trees.

      "I wuz tryin' to git outside," muttered the Negro.

      "What for?" demanded Rogers. "Didn't you know you'd git jailed if they catched you?"

      "Ruther go to de jail-house dan git mixed up—in de devilment —dey's cookin' up—in de swamp." The voice sank lower as speech grew more difficult.

      "What you mean, Joe?" uneasily demanded Rogers.

      "Voodoo niggers," muttered Corley disjointedly. "Took dat Chinaman 'stead uh me—didn't want me to git away, though—then John Bartholomew —uuuugh!"

      A trickle of blood started from the corner of his thick lips, he stiffened in brief convulsion and then lay still.

      "He's dead!" whispered Rogers, staring down the swamp path with dilated eyes.

      "He spoke of a Chinaman," said Harrison. "That clinches it that we're on the right trail. Have to leave him here for the time being. Nothing we can do for him now. Let's get going."

      "You aim to go on, after this?" exclaimed Rogers.

      "Why not?"

      "Mr. Harrison," said Rogers solemnly, "you offered me a good wage to guide you into this here swamp. But I'm tellin' you fair there ain't enough money to make me go in there now, with night comin' on."

      "But why?" protested Harrison. "Just because this man got into a fight with one of his own kind—"

      "It's more 'n just that," declared Rogers decisively. "This nigger was tryin' to git out of the swamp when they got him. He knowed he'd git jailed on the outside, but he was goin' anyway; that means somethin' had scared the livin' daylights out of him. You heard him say it was the Swamp Cat that got him?"

      "Well?"

      "Well,

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