I I
 
 

 
 JOHN THE FOOL
 
 
 
 "1 did not desire you to die"
 
 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 An American Romance 
 
 By 
 CHARLES TENNEY JACKSON 
 
 Author of The Day of Souls, My Brother s Keeper 
 The Midlanders, etc. 
 
 Illustrated by 
 HAZEL ROBERTS 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1914 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PRESS or 
 
 BRAUNWOHTH & CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS ANO PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. V.
 
 "Make me over in the morning 
 
 From the rag-bag of the world ! 
 Scraps of dream and duds of daring, 
 
 Home-brought stuff from far sea-faring, 
 Faded colors once so flaring, 
 
 Shreds of banners long since furled ! 
 Hues of ash and glints of glory, 
 
 From the rag-bag of the world ! " 
 
 From Songs of Vagabondla 
 
 2136486
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE WOOD SAINT ....... 1 
 
 II THE MAN S SIZE JOB , 11 
 
 III ISLE BONNE 32 
 
 IV THE BARON , . 55 
 
 V THE HONEY HUNTERS 78 
 
 VI THE WAY TO BEGIN , 105 
 
 VII THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 117 
 
 VIII His LAST MARQUISE 129 
 
 IX A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 145 
 
 X A GOWN AND DYNAMITE ..... 162 
 
 XI THE HATE OF MEN 176 
 
 XII THE NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS .... 192 
 
 XIII THE OLD PIRATE HEAD ..... 205 
 
 XIV THE TURN OF FORTUNE 224 
 
 XV THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER . . , .238 
 
 XVI THE BIG HIDE-UP 258 
 
 XVII BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 282 
 
 XVIII IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 291 
 
 XIX THE KING o SPAIN SURRENDERS . 307
 
 JOHN THE FOOL
 
 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 * R L Wy San Anton ~* " 
 
 ^^ It seemed an echo high and clear out of 
 the flooded forest aisles. Then laughter, mocking 
 our little captain s cackle. Allesjandro turned with 
 his hand on the mast of his red-sailed lugger; he 
 grinned at us about the limp canvas and then re 
 sumed his trot along the gunwale, wiping the sweat 
 from his grizzled brow. 
 
 Laughter it was, and mocking us again, as we 
 sat in the Good Child, which lay in the slowly 
 floating bloom of hyacinths, for across this purple 
 garden the white shell beach of Isle Bonne seemed 
 no nearer than an hour ago. The south coast sun 
 was April-warm, and the gray forest wall invited 
 with its shadows as we drifted in that morning 
 calm. 
 
 "Blow, San Anton e!" 
 
 And again the three of us in Allesjandro s lugger 
 i
 
 2 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 stared helplessly into the cypress jungle where 
 was she? 
 
 For of all places as my young friend, Redfield, 
 put it when he arose astride his suit-case in the 
 stern of the Good Child "of all places that one 
 would expect to find a girl, and laughing at us, it s 
 the limit!" 
 
 Virgil Williams nodded to me, with patient deli 
 cacy, ignoring the other man, as he had done these 
 four days now when their hatred deepened. 
 
 "I told you, Doctor Dick," he put in gently. 
 "That s the girl, and that s the island. It s the 
 last of the sweet lands and beyond it run the 
 salt tides. The sweet land is what I m fightin fo 
 against the Gulf of Mexico, and a girl !" And the 
 gaunt Texan, with the eyes of a dreamer, looked 
 wistfully past the white shell beach to the wilder 
 ness: "Only, Doctor Dick, somehow, I cain t ex 
 plain all my problems to the land company." 
 
 As a director of the Prairie Meadows Land and 
 Development Company I straightway guessed as 
 much. Even though I couldn t see her, because my 
 eyes were now aching with all the colors under that 
 Louisiana sky. Allesjandro, dragging his running 
 pole along his pink and blue and yellow boat; pink 
 and blue and yellow it was under its red sail, and
 
 THE WOOD SAINT 3 
 
 the little Manilaman, mahogany-brown in a shirt 
 of emerald, limned against the purple of the float 
 ing gardens, and where one sought the open water 
 for relief, the pools merely caught up all that morn 
 ing brilliance and flashed it back to you! 
 
 Could Clell Redfield or I men of the house 
 habit "New York fel-los," as the Texan gently 
 styled us look long into the recesses of Laure s 
 island? 
 
 The little lugger captain kept on his ceaseless 
 trotting to pole us shoreward against the hyacinth 
 drift; we would never make Isle Bonne s cove, that 
 was sure; and of a sudden Allesjandro stopped 
 and bawled into the silence, for that wood echo 
 was mocking us again : 
 
 "Blow, San Anton el Blow San Ignacio! San 
 Pancrasio! San Pie fro! San Barrabo!" 
 
 There were some strange saints in Allesjandro s 
 calendar. But on my word as her elfin laughter 
 answered the Good Child lifted, heeled a bit as her 
 red canvas filled ; and the little skipper, with a crow 
 of delight, was back at his tiller, kicking it over 
 with the crotch of his toes while he let the sheet 
 run. Somewhere over the flowered , water had 
 moved a breath, and softly, as if treasuring its 
 strength, the lugger stole from pool to pool in the
 
 4 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 opening channel. Alles Janeiro was forward when 
 her bow grated on the shell beach; he was out and 
 throwing a line about the one-plank wharf, and 
 then, his hat off, he was bowing exuberantly but 
 not to his saints, I fear ! 
 
 "Me sometimes I burn a candle fo dat wind 
 you send, Saint Laure !" he cried, and bowed again : 
 "San Barrabo, I put him last fo Papa Prosper say 
 not to his saints, I fear ! 
 
 Then we saw wide-eyed, silent, curious at us 
 Allesjandro s wood saint. She was swinging her 
 brown foot in the clear black water about the cypress 
 spikes, and her gown was so of the hue of the moss- 
 hung bark that if she had not stirred, I might not 
 have discovered her. The shimmer of that sun-filled 
 sea and sky was still dazzling us. She was looking 
 with an assumption of a grand dame s hauteur at 
 Virgil Williams; and the Texan returned her gaze 
 patiently. Then, without recognizing him, or us two 
 strangers to Isle Bonne, she arose with careful dig 
 nity, picked her way to the one-plank wharf and 
 went along it to the stairs of Papa Prosper s gal- 
 lerie and up them to the house on stilts above the 
 low shell ridge. 
 
 Clell Redfield and I gaped after her as if she 
 had been a nymph disengaged and arisen from the
 
 THE WOOD SAINT 5 
 
 gray of the ancient wood. Only that slender form, 
 her black hair in one lustrous fall of loose braid 
 down her back, the suggested profile and the slant 
 of her scornful eye as she passed well, the way 
 she cut us was far too much of the world to leave 
 us any illusion of Arcady. She didn t like us, that 
 was it, without doubt. 
 
 The tall Texan man sighed: "It s me. Spoiled 
 all her fun soon as she saw I d come back to Isle 
 Bonne! You see we re fightin her fo the land. 
 Laure and the Gulf of Mexico, and a little old 
 king o Spain the three of them is some hard 
 combination." 
 
 "The king of Spain?" I said, and even Clell for 
 got his mordant grimness in the Texan s presence 
 to listen: "and why the king of Spain?" 
 
 Virgil made his old patient gesture out to the 
 wide hot prairies beyond the swamp isle. "He is 
 the worst of all. Been dead a hundred and fifty 
 years, but once he gave a grant of land to one of 
 these Drouillots. Yes, seh half a million arpents 
 of land to some old pirate of a duke. And here, 
 the last of em sits on it the last of the sweet 
 land, fo most of it s gone under the Gulf of Mexi 
 co." 
 
 Then he looked up patiently again at the shutter-
 
 6 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ed house on its absurd stilts above the shell-margin 
 ed swamp. Allesjandro had gone on and into its 
 galleried recess; the murmur of conferring voices 
 came to us with the drone of bees somewhere be 
 yond. "And I offered em forty thousand clollehs 
 once for their rights to Isle Bonne which rights 
 are just none, unless they find the original grants 
 from the king o Spain. Otherwise the French 
 heirs in Bordeaux hold it, and it s the Bordeaux 
 Drouillots our company bought the titles from. 
 Forty thousand, and Laure wouldn t take it she d 
 rather put faith in that little king o Spain than 
 she would in me!" 
 
 And his high, serene smile came again. 
 
 I knew the man s stuff; he had got twenty thou 
 sand dollars of my money into the Prairie Lands 
 & Development Company just because once I heard 
 him tell his story over a directors table. Simple, 
 without pretense, or evasion I remembered the still 
 ness among those uneasy, complaining financiers 
 as they badgered him with questions, and he told 
 of the six years of disaster; the sun, the mosquitoes, 
 the loneliness, the gulf storms up from Cuba, the 
 sea rushing inland smiting his dredges and canals, 
 wiping out in a night all the crawling labor of a
 
 THE WOOD SAINT 9 
 
 complacently, for I was one of those sorry and fatu 
 ous directors of Virgil s. 
 
 He smiled engagingly but with restraint. 
 
 "Come, now," I demanded. "I ll ask Mary and 
 find out. What s become of your first land seek 
 er?" 
 
 "Took one look at his homestead, and then blow- 
 ed his head off. I bought his stuff from the widda 
 that s how I got that baby buggy. I sto ed it in 
 that camp, Doctor Dick. Maybe someday they ll 
 be real folks around here, and some kids and 
 well, just you wait " his slow loving gesture 
 came, his hand up and waving to the dazzling 
 shift of clouds and light over the isle flott antes 
 the impassable trembling prairie of the south coast: 
 "You wait, Doctor Dick. Some day " and in his 
 eyes his dream stood forth his wilderness was a 
 phantom land of long ago, and in its stead a smil 
 ing countryside of homes and playing children: he 
 went on serenely. "Some day, Doctor Dick, that 
 little fool baby buggy well, I don t know just ex 
 actly what I will do with it, but th s been times the 
 last years on this job when it was all that kept 
 me fightin yes, seh that little fool buggy with 
 the pink side flaps settin in that swamp shack, all 
 so lonesome. I expaict the s been times when I
 
 io JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 sneaked ove to that shack and looked in and said : 
 I m cleaned out now, but I m comin back; I m 
 licked now, but I m crawlin up and all fo you! 
 Yes, sell fo you personal and specified. 
 
 And then he stood up on the shell beach rimming 
 Isle Bonne s forest, slowly dying in the stealthy sea 
 tides creeping in; and to that fantastic place of 
 light, of color and of silence, he spoke with the 
 fine drama of a man defying failure: 
 
 "You see it s me personal and specified fo 
 the sweet land, against the gulf, the girl and the 
 king o Spain!"
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 
 
 YOU see the fellow had been bred on defeat. He 
 had gone in the front door of the house of 
 failure, in and out of all the rooms, and out the 
 back yard and in again, abiding there his days. The 
 sea lands and the short-grass country, the ranges 
 and the mountains; he had mined, and ridden, and 
 fought through irrigation schemes and somehow, 
 always other men had reaped and he had turned 
 aside with sore hands, watching and biding his 
 time again. 
 
 I don t know just when he came to the south 
 coast country ; I had met him first in Mary Mason s 
 apartments, on Fifty-seventh Street; she had known 
 him since, as a child, she rode his saddle in the 
 Panhandle country. He had loved her, it seems, 
 but she had come east and made good; and again 
 the silent soldier of misfortune had stepped aside 
 for another. But I shall have to go back a bit to 
 tell how it was that I came south with these two 
 
 II
 
 12 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 men, Williams and Clell Redfield, and the hate 
 between them. 
 
 I had retired from our firm of manufacturing 
 chemists, that year, and had planned the next with 
 Crosby, who had been our chief bacteriologist, 
 and had his bachelor apartments with me for twenty- 
 two years, until the government lured him away and 
 sent him to the Caucasus on the trail of an impos 
 sible bug to avenge the wrongs of another bug a 
 Department of Agriculture bug that was being ex 
 terminated by still another bug of alien and preda 
 tory instincts. The third parasite was too much for 
 poor old Crosby, so after wandering about Arabia 
 and South Russia for a year he met a girl from 
 home, resigned and settled down in a villa at Nice. 
 That was a blow to me^ unless you have scraped 
 the bottom of the same tobacco jar with a man for 
 twenty-two years you won t understand; besides 
 she was twenty years younger. Still Crosby had 
 written, cabled, plead, and when he learned that I 
 retired from the firm, demanded. The girl had 
 granted him a dispensation of six weeks while we 
 tramped the Alps, and Crosby said he still had the 
 same pipe. 
 
 So, until this affair of Mary and Clell, whom I 
 loved better than well, I won t say Crosby, but his
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 13 
 
 meerschaum I had planned a deal on that sojourn. 
 The girl had written me that never, never would 
 she insist that we retire of mornings until four, 
 if the talk was good, which was more than Mrs. 
 Meegs would allow in our old quarters. Mrs. Cros 
 by really seemed possible; and recalling Crosby s 
 former theory that there were only two kinds of 
 women in the world the round roily ones and the 
 long skinny ones I was curious about her. After 
 forty a man is either a fool or a physician; and 
 Crosby was not a physician he merely knew some 
 thing about bugs and bacteria. 
 
 As I said, the affair began that night in Mary s 
 apartments. Virgil was in the city, called to his 
 annual conference with the directors of the land 
 company, facing their losing faith, complaints that 
 he had drawn them into the most daring of all the 
 Gulf coast reclamation projects. I had met him 
 once; Clell, never. But he knew what Mary had 
 been to the Texan; that for twelve years Virgil 
 had loved her, and that is a long time for a man 
 to love a woman steadfastly, loyally, without re 
 compense, without hope; to grow from boyhood 
 with a passion, then, reverencing its uselessness, 
 lay it away, simply, without resentment, when he 
 knew she cared more for another.
 
 14 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I had just of late had my eyes really opened to 
 it all. dell s and Mary s affairs were an open book. 
 For all the six years of their engagement, since 
 they had both graduated, classmates at the univer 
 sity, not a week had passed of their eager busy 
 lives that I had not been with them, listened to their 
 hopes and fears, successes and discouragements. 
 
 It had been queer enough. They had plunged into 
 the business world together at the foot of the lad 
 der in the same huge utilities corporation; Clell 
 Redfield with his electrical engineer s diploma in the 
 drafting room of the Amalgamated Electric Com 
 pany, and Mary Mason in the offices. They were 
 equally poor, young, proud, buoyant they would 
 get on and marry when the time came, when Clell 
 had become a branch manager for the concern, or 
 had opened his own consulting engineer s offices. 
 
 And six years of their engagement had come 
 and gone, and Clell was still a draftsman advanc 
 ed to no more than twenty-five dollars a week; 
 while Mary was now the confidential secretary to 
 the general manager at five thousand a year ! That 
 was the tragedy I had been sadly watching it now 
 these two years; dell s boyish enthusiasm dulling, 
 the light going from his eyes, a sort of shamefaced- 
 ness about him when he was with Mary and me
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 15 
 
 at out little theater sprees or up at her flat the 
 iron was entering his soul that he had failed at 
 twenty-five. The pity of it! 
 
 But I understood; one can of a fellow as proud 
 and sensitive as Clell. Mary dumbly knew and 
 had tried to conceal it from herself and from him. 
 Only ten minutes before Virgil came this night, her 
 lover cleared it for them both, turning to me, as I 
 removed my overcoat, with a beseeching pathos : 
 
 "Doctor Dick, I m tired of waiting. It isn t right 
 even before this thing of Leila s money, and 
 Mary having to make good my shortage, it s become 
 intolerable. Waiting always waiting. Good lord, 
 I ve tried I ve smashed away down there six years 
 and to-day there are ten thousand young fellows 
 just out of college who are ready and fit to take 
 my job. And Mary well, I asked her to resign 
 her position and marry me and take a chance and 
 she won t!" 
 
 Mary s gray eyes had sought mine, strangely 
 touched. 
 
 "That isn t quite it, Doctor Dick. I love Clell. 
 You both know how much. And it s been hard 
 waiting oh, so very hard! But now, when I 
 I seem really to have gone on a bit and Clell, dear 
 Qell "
 
 16 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Clell had winced; I nodded sympathetically. I 
 was guessing much. 
 
 "We ought to have been married long ago," went 
 on Mary. 
 
 "And I asked her to marry me now," Clell cried. 
 
 "On your salary, Clell?" I ventured. 
 
 "That s just it, Doctor Dick. Six years, and by 
 this time we had planned that I d have got ahead 
 and Mary would have quit her place and we d been 
 married. And it s Mary who s gone to the top!" 
 
 "Quite so." I put in far too tranquilly for 
 hotheaded Clell. 
 
 "Every cent I ever saved went for technical books 
 what does it get a fellow with this big combine ?" 
 
 "Clell, dear," Mary had put in softly, "you ve 
 done splendidly. Only 
 
 "That s it only you ve done better. Mary, 
 there s something wrong somewhere. College and 
 special training for you women is a big mistake. Or 
 else it s the time and the city. You re too too 
 modern I ask you to marry me on my salary and 
 you won t." 
 
 "No. And you know I love you, Clell." And 
 Mary turned to me with a bright brave eagerness. 
 "Doctor Dick, I just asked him to marry me ! Now 
 at once to-morrow and we d both keep on
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 17 
 
 working until till Clell did get on and open his 
 own consulting offices, and things were splendid!" 
 
 "My dear " I began, not so tranquilly this time. 
 
 "Thing of that Doctor Dick!" Clell cried. 
 "Mary and I married both of us working she 
 at five hundred a month and me a hundred ! Good 
 lord, do you think a man could stand for that?" 
 
 "I told him it would only be for a year or so. 
 And we could keep on right in my apartments, 
 Doctor Dick and live on his income and save my 
 money to open his business with when the time 
 came." 
 
 "Exactly like you, Mary. Wonderfully sane, 
 practical all that but a man " I looked pity 
 ingly at Clell, and it stung afresh, I fear. 
 
 "Doctor Dick sees " he blurted. 
 
 "Dear old Dick is as out-of-the-century as you 
 are." Mary retorted. "Oh, I want to help and I 
 want to be free free to help !" 
 
 "Er but marriage " I said, and the girl cut 
 me off sharply. 
 
 "Marriage is what?" 
 
 "Well " I cleared my throat severely. "All these 
 ideas of you intensely modern young women er, 
 break up the home and everything." 
 
 Mary laughed there at the outraged two of us.
 
 i8 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "To be free and capable, and able to help make 
 a home that breaks up the home, does it?" 
 
 "What sort of home would that be?" Clell re 
 torted. "I ll admit I m a bit old-fashioned. And 
 Mary, she s grown away from us, Doctor. The 
 crowd that gathers here at her place Friday even 
 ings I can t go them. And the talk. It would 
 discourage you, Doctor Dick, also." 
 
 "Clell, what do you think I ve been working and 
 waiting for all these years, except a home a free 
 home the best home the home of the women of 
 to-morrow ! A helpmate to the man I love a com 
 panion. Of course I can t keep house on twenty- 
 five a week. But I can earn money to do so on a 
 hundred!" 
 
 Clell turned away from her victoriousness with 
 a despair that I knew was irrevocable. 
 
 "To help you, dear!" she cried brightly. "Oh, 
 we re young and healthy and strong and the things 
 we can do together! But stuck away in a dreary 
 flat of three rooms I could do nothing to help 
 not even cook decently. Oh, Clell, won t you see 
 it?" 
 
 "It s your standerd of life you re thinking of 
 not mine." 
 
 "It is, indeed. And our our children. Do you
 
 "No, that isn t my idea of a wife"
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 19 
 
 know what your standards would mean in New 
 York and to you and me and the fight ahead?" 
 
 He stared at her. He was a bit old-fashioned. It 
 hurt even to mention their children the boy and 
 I were much alike. But Mary went on evenly, 
 without constraint. 
 
 "I simply wouldn t have them that is all. Un 
 til we were ready. And that means sunny rooms, 
 air and light and all the good things. No, no I " 
 and she laughed queerly. "I won t. I want you 
 to marry me, Clell to-morrow. And we ll take a 
 run of a month up in Maine, and then come back 
 and set to work bravely and hopefully." Then 
 her face set a bit hard "In spite of everything. 
 Your your folly about Leila s money, and and 
 what you ve said the hard things you ve said " 
 
 He laughed in his turn, mirthlessly. "On your 
 money. No that isn t my idea of a wife." 
 
 "Well, comrades then, dear but together." 
 
 She was really trying, I could see. And she loved 
 him greatly, beautifully with all her modernism 
 and unsentimental wiseness and isms and cults 
 she loved him better than he could know. 
 
 "Think of what men d say Redfield his wife 
 working. Down in the same office and making 
 five times what he does."
 
 20 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She shrugged: "Oh, well! I can t stop for 
 what men say!" 
 
 "I I ve been straight/ he went on moodily. "I ve 
 never done what a lot of fellows I know have done. 
 I kept you in view always and sometimes it was 
 hard. The economic pressure that puts marriage 
 off and makes such an awful evil mess of things 
 for a lot of them I fought the game both ways. 
 Doctor Dick, you ll understand!" 
 
 "And so do I, Clell. Why shouldn t a woman 
 know all truth all life and face it without fear? 
 A man s strength his protection we don t need 
 either. We need truth and freedom and work for 
 our souls !" 
 
 We both stared at her. I thought I knew Mary 
 Mason, but she had been getting away from me. 
 That was clear now. And poor Clell ! 
 
 "I won t be what you want me to be, Clell." 
 
 "I want you to help make a home for us." 
 
 "Yes, with these two hands and this brain of 
 mine. Oh, it would be glorious, dear and you 
 won t you won t ! I want to fight by your side 
 and you want to shut me in a cage and feed me 
 through the bars !" 
 
 "Mary," I put in solemnly, "I never heard you 
 talk like this. Even when you graduated and all
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 23 
 
 refuse to make a home for a man when you love 
 him!" 
 
 "I am offering to make a home, Clell!" she an 
 swered simply. "I m fighting for my home for 
 my children for the children of every woman 
 fighting better than the old sort of women did. The 
 children we refuse to bring into the world in dirt 
 and poverty and disease that s what we mean 
 we new women ! That is the greatest love of all 
 the wisest, biggest, best That is what we mean 
 we women!" 
 
 She had laid the ring upon the table. He did 
 not take it. I tried to mutter something, just what, 
 I don t know, except that they were the dearest of 
 everything in the world to me they and their happi 
 ness. But the next moment Clell was going, ignor 
 ing her and the ring entirely; and then he stopped, 
 facing me dryly. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, that foolish investment of mine of 
 Leila s money criminal, I guess it was, the way the 
 court looks at it. I I thank you. She" he 
 pointed his thumb back at Mary "said you got it 
 and it s in the court s hands. God bless you, Doctor 
 Dick!" 
 
 "Bless you, boy!" I retorted with my fatal facil 
 ity for blundering. "I never raised that confound-
 
 24 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ed money when Mary told me yesterday, I was flat 
 strapped. Then along came Williams and we held 
 him up, seeing it was a matter of moments before 
 court closed." 
 
 And at that moment while I stared into the si 
 lence that fell between us all, not knowing what I 
 had done the bell rang. Another minute and Vir 
 gil Williams came in, in his usual direct 
 manner past the maid. Virgil, who d known Mary 
 Mason in her lean childhood of the short-grass 
 country. 
 
 The thing could not have been staged more 
 egregiously coincidental. My speech, dell s gasp 
 ing wrath, Mary s silence then Williams of Texas 
 from Louisiana, up here to sandbag reluctant 
 millionaires for his drainage canals. We should all 
 have been in the movies at that moment. 
 
 "You took it from Williams, Doctor Dick!" re 
 torted Clell. 
 
 My attempt at nonchalance was the baldest taste : 
 "Now, my dear chap " I began; but Clell had leap 
 ed back before Mary. 
 
 "The man from Texas !" he cried. "I might have 
 known! That s a part of it. Every year some 
 times twice a year he turns up here and you " 
 
 "Be still," said the Texan: "Yon!"
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 25 
 
 Clell swept around on him. "I owe you two 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 "You owe to Doctor Rainey two thousand dol 
 lars," put in Mary, and her voice came from far 
 cold spaces of impersonality. 
 
 "No !" Clell answered. "I yesterday my Honor 
 so it was called was endangered because I 
 couldn t account for two thousand dollars in my 
 little sister s property settlement. It well, no mat 
 ter where it went. But you you dared call upon 
 this man for help about it." 
 
 Virgil looked at him with a sudden dangerous 
 alertness. But Clell was speaking to me as much as 
 to Mary. Mary had had her say. She stood by her 
 table looking down; the light on her brown hair, 
 but I could not see her face. 
 
 "You wanted to break the engagement you 
 wanted to. I know!" 
 
 She merely shrugged. 
 
 "She offered to marry you to-morrow," I suggest 
 ed. And I noticed a curious twist of the Texan s 
 cheek, his lean brown face set harder. He kept his 
 silence. 
 
 Then we were all still for a time. Clell broke 
 it, turning again to the other man. 
 
 "Damn you your meddling your coming here.
 
 26 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 But that s all past I personally owe you two 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 "All right." The other man s soft drawl had the 
 caress of the south wind before the hurricane month : 
 "You personally owe me two thousand dollahs." 
 
 Clell was a boy after all facing a man. I knew 
 him so well, his hot head, his way of leaping at 
 things and then the break. I was painfully ex 
 pecting him to break now a tremor to his voice, 
 almost to tears at his shame, his helplessness, his 
 sense of wrong, and nothing would break him quick 
 er than this last, poor chap! 
 
 He went on in a pretense of matter-of-fact busi 
 ness. "I can t pay you now. I have left my posi 
 tion am going away. But this" he turned 
 to me with a touch of his old fierceness "remem 
 ber, Doctor Dick, this is my debt. I pay !" 
 
 I had to bow my head in assent. The boy would 
 have throttled me if I had crossed him then. Mary 
 still listened dispassionately. 
 
 "I ll give you a note," poor Clell blundered on, 
 and Virgil let the ghost of a smile to his lips. 
 
 "Note? I don t want a note. Down where I 
 come from a man s word is a man s word. Yes, 
 seh ! You-all owe me two thousand dollahs. Down 
 where I come from you d learn a good deal of men.
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 27 
 
 Men out in the loneliness, fightin away. They re 
 pretty square, somehow. About money and with 
 women. Yes, seh you d learn a good deal if you 
 could stand up under a man s size game." 
 
 The younger man looked at him across the table. 
 "I don t know. You d have to show me. You 
 aren t such a damned lot as I can see." 
 
 The southerner glanced at him a bit more softly 
 from under his hat, which he had put on to go, as 
 he always did, and then remembered to take it off 
 when he reached the hall. 
 
 "A man s size game," he repeated. "Good-by, you- 
 all. Miss Mary, I ll come in again before Wednes 
 day mawnin when I leave." 
 
 Mary did not stir. Clell it was who moved swift 
 ly about the table. "Remember," he flashed out 
 "two thousand dollars !" 
 
 The other man laughed softly. The city youth 
 followed again. 
 
 "Damn you, I could show you! Your man s 
 game I could knock your block off at it!" 
 
 The Texan squared around, gently folding his 
 arms. "Yes? Oh, I reckon you could do pass 
 able. I seen em from the cities that could get by 
 with the work. But the lonesomeness the bigness 
 with the sea runnin in on you, and the silence
 
 28 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 well, you stick to you little blue-prints and high 
 stool, stranger, yet a while." 
 
 The remote scorn in that soft voice was some 
 thing you can not suggest. But it found its way 
 to the city man s soul. He reached to touch the 
 other s arm, a tap of his forefinger. 
 
 "I owe you two thousand dollars. Maybe you 
 got a job where a man could pay that out?" 
 
 "I got" drawled the other "a man s size job 
 for a man." 
 
 "I want it." 
 
 "Seh?" 
 
 "I ll go." 
 
 "Seh? With me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The silence fell again. I felt Mary was watching 
 them with that sure, covert, careless poise of hers. 
 That exquisite capability of Mary s was annoying 
 now and then ; and to a lover it might have been 
 well, I refused to pass judgment; my mind went 
 disconsolately back to Crosby and his pipe. I won 
 dered how the new vintage of femininity had been 
 poured into such a cracked old bottle as he, if here 
 was my hot young man in revolt at it. He madly 
 wanted some primal fear, some barbaric unreason-
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 29 
 
 ableness in Mary, and she had, apparently, a mere 
 unbiased appreciation of the deplorable situation. 
 
 The Texan had been measuring Clell, too; he 
 spoke softly, and as if the other might have been a 
 roustabout who asked him for a job on the levees. 
 
 "Ninety dollahs a month will start you. And 
 grub. I cain t say just what you ll do. It s a right 
 lonesome camp way off up in back." 
 
 He was at the door and then, from the elevator 
 in the hall, turned : "Maybe you ll make good, Red- 
 field. You have you chance." 
 
 Then he had gone ; and after a time in which there 
 was no word from us, Clell went out. It cut me 
 to the heart to have them part so. Clell and Mary 
 the two I loved. But when the boy was gone, 
 Mary flew past the sad little silver things on the 
 table that had been set for a bite with Clell and me 
 this piteous evening. 
 
 "Doctor Dick!" she whispered, "they can t do it 
 1 they can t hating each other! Clell and Virgil 
 who gave me up to him long ago. Oh, something 
 dreadful will happen!" 
 
 "Well," I answered: "you were not moved to 
 say so before." 
 
 "How could I ? Would Clell have listened ? With
 
 30 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 with Virgil looking on, and smiling? I had to 
 let them make the test! 
 
 "You succeeded very well, my dear. You are a 
 bit super-civilized, as poor Cell imagines. Too de 
 tached, too complete, too " 
 
 "Doctor Dick!" 
 
 "It appears so. I am trying to be dispassionate. 
 But Clell feels he s failed, while you are very sure 
 that you have not. And so he s turning utterly 
 from your type of woman and your scheme of 
 things. He wants something different wholly bar 
 barous, and to fling himself against it and win." 
 
 "But he s not that kind himself!" 
 
 I tried to smoke and conceal satisfaction at the 
 flutter she was in. "But you ll go," she cried : "And 
 see to them that nothing dreadful does happen, 
 Doctor Dick, dear!" 
 
 "It seems so. Virgil, confound him, wheedled 
 most of my loose money into his land concern. But 
 the fellow someway you can t help it." 
 
 "That s just it," she mused. "He loved me for 
 twelve years it took all that to convince him I 
 
 J 
 
 couldn t marry him dear solemn chap!" She 
 sighed: "But once convinced, he has taken it su 
 perbly as a big man would. He even told me of 
 a girl down there some wild creature who was
 
 THE MAN S SIZE JOB 31 
 
 blocking all his great schemes somehow or other." 
 Then she was thinking again : "Doctor Dick, do you 
 think I should have given up everything just to be 
 Clell s wife?" 
 
 "That is what men like to think, down in their 
 souls and some women, too. But utterly impracti 
 cal, my dear incomprehensibly silly! None but a 
 savage would be so absurd as to love in any such 
 fashion." 
 
 Mary stopped me with the first flash of anger 
 I had ever seen in her and rang the bell for the 
 tea silently. But I saw that as a savage, she was 
 a sad failure! 
 
 And so it was that the three men of us came 
 to Isle Bonne, and glimpsed back of it the shimmer 
 ing canal, leading to the man s size job. At 
 this end sat Allesjandro s wilful wood saint. She 
 hardly appeared an insurmountable barrier even if 
 abetted by the king of Spain.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ISLE BONNE 
 
 NOW from the sto of my friend Prosper on 
 Isle Bonne to the sto of my friend Placide on 
 Isle L Ourse is not so far that one might not walk 
 it in an hour, if there was anything to walk on 
 which there is not; and anything to purchase at 
 either establishment. Placide, in fact, having con 
 gratulated himself that his final customer, having 
 purchased the last of his condensed milk on credit 
 and having stolen the last of his peppers, with a 
 morsel of garlic for lagnappe he, also can peace 
 fully sit on his gallerie and watch the lilies drift 
 to the sea, unannoyed by such a banal thing as 
 trade. 
 
 Papa Prosper, wearing huge horn goggles across 
 his gray lank face and holding a two months old 
 New Orleans newspaper upside down, paddled out 
 on his gallerie in his straw slippers to greet us 
 with the courtesy due one s enemies. 
 
 "We were just passin this \vay," murmured Vir- 
 32
 
 ISLE BONNE 33 
 
 gil. "And I thought you-all might as well know 
 these two fel-los to begin with." 
 
 Papa bowed to the introductions. "Ah, messieurs ! 
 Ou leetle isle she is too much. Fo why gentle 
 men quarrel ? M sieu Williams, f o f ou years now 
 he says: Papa, pretty soon yo have to get out. 
 I say: Fo why all dis? M sieu Williams, he 
 say : We sue you f o dis leetle isle, and yo betteh 
 come to dat cou t. Papa Prosper sighed ami 
 ably : "Me, I don t go fo nuttin . All a-time some 
 body he sue fo dis leetle isle. Sixty years now, all 
 a-time somebody sue fo ou leetle isle, messieurs; 
 and me I sit here on my gallerie, jus lak a million 
 aire." 
 
 Virgil sighed gently in return. He shook his 
 head lugubriously. Papa Prosper was waving a 
 hand to the darkened hall of his house. 
 
 "Coffee, mademoiselle, fo messieurs." 
 
 But mademoiselle was not there. I saw her now 
 stealing from the ragged clump of latanier palm 
 that enrobed the shoulders of Papa Prosper s wild 
 sweet garden, and crossing the shell ridge to her 
 former perch on the bole of the ancient oak. 
 I saw another there, a lazy dark-eyed boy 
 stretched outright in his green pirogue among the 
 jutting knees of the cypress in the water. He had
 
 34 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 peered at us from the shadowy recesses, and now, 
 >vhen the girl crept again to her niche in the great 
 tree, he settled back quite content. 
 
 Papa eyed this finely indifferent evasion of his 
 paternal authority. Coffee for messieurs from her 
 hands was plainly not forthcoming. The toss of her 
 long braid over her left shoulder as she sat was 
 cruelly meant for the New York fel-los. Papa 
 sighed again, and with a long forefinger raised the 
 horn goggles upon his nose reflectively. 
 
 "Ah, dis worl ! She is too much. Me I Pros 
 per Drouillot f o why I go sue somebody ? Laure 
 all a-time, she come back from John-the-Fool and 
 say : Papa, dem Yankee fel-los dig and dig and dig 
 in ou* leetle isle bom! Sooch a noise sooch a 
 smoke dat dredge, he mak ! Why doan yo sue some 
 body? Le bon Dieu, and dem lawyers I trust fo 
 ou leetle isle. So Laure go back to Messieur le 
 Baron, and Messieur le Baron, he roar. Lak a 
 beeg steamboat when he blow up sooch a noise!" 
 
 He waved us to the long benches against the 
 honeysuckle shade of his gallerie. Then he was 
 gone within and to his coffee-dripping. 
 
 "There was some mail," put in Williams, as we 
 idled. "I gave it to you, Doctor Dick remembeh ?"
 
 ISLE BONNE 35 
 
 I had forgotten some gimcrack of a card given 
 us at the last port of call of the bi-weekly 
 mail-boat a shrimp camp twenty miles up the tidal 
 lakes. Only the name; and the picture of some 
 boys school in New Orleans. I went back to my 
 coat left on the lugger, and then an idea seized 
 me of securing recognition from our recalcitrant 
 wood saint. So I paused at the oak tree by the 
 shell ridge margin and with air and bow of my best 
 twenties extended the resplendent card to her 
 
 "Mademoiselle Laure, I have the honor " 
 
 Then there was a most glorious fight. The lazy 
 dark-eyed boy started up from his green pirogue, 
 almost upsetting the craft and pulling Laure off 
 the log into the water. He snatched at the post 
 card and their hands came together. Out the wood 
 saint reached and fastened her other hand in the 
 youth s curly hair. Off fell his sweetheart s gar 
 land; over he fell splash! And she atop of him! 
 Up they came dripping and breathless, scrambling 
 along the shell beach. But the saint had her gin 
 gerbread card. 
 
 "Pig!" she called back with fathomless contempt 
 and triumph. "Pig pig pig!" 
 
 Up she climbed on the shaky planks to me, the
 
 36 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 scant blue-gray skirt she wore clinging to her slim- 
 ness, her breasts heaving. She turned to me with 
 angry laughter. 
 
 "Merci, messieur ! My card he treat that a- way !" 
 She cast her scorn back to the wet lover who was 
 after his morning catch of crabs scrambling this 
 way and that. "Pig ! Now I love Antoine ! Never 
 he do that." She treasured Antoine s limp card 
 ever so tenderly to her damp cheek. "He never 
 waste his life with mostly crabs. He going on and 
 on in the world sometime he be a barbeh !" 
 
 The defeated one was crushed. Disconsolately 
 he held up his luckless basket. "Fo ty cents of 
 crabs I lost, m sieu! Fo why? dat girl!" He 
 sighed and turned away. "Wan time, sometime, 
 I go off and see the worl and be a sto clerk!" 
 
 I, too, sighed. Will we never be done with it? 
 Isle Bonne was not large enough, nor its wood 
 deep enough, nor its sky high enough to contain love 
 without rancor. I feared we had come to the wrong 
 place with our own doleful tale. I looked back at 
 Clell who had got out on the docks and was inter 
 estedly staring at Laure. The Texan s glance was 
 on her. She read lovelorn Antoine to the clammy 
 end. Then with a voice whose soft malice was 
 just raised to the wet one s hearing she turned :
 
 ISLE BONNE 37 
 
 "Papa, Antoine say he not think he got money for 
 school this winteh all a-time, so he come back and 
 marry me!" 
 
 Papa Prosper pattered down to us, his two 
 months old paper still under his arm, and removed 
 his huge horn goggles. 
 
 "Ah, m sieu, dat girl! All a-time marry some 
 body ! Dat what a-happen to my pig, m sieu. All 
 a-time somebody come marry Laure!" 
 
 Now from under the red sto wandered a pig. A 
 white pig about whose ample girth was trimly set 
 a rusty barrel hoop. We gazed in wonder. The 
 Texan was laughing softly. Clell looked at it with 
 the first trace of a smile since we left the North. 
 Apparently it interested his engineer s technique. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, what I d like to know is, did they 
 put the pig in the barrel hoop, or the barrel hoop 
 around the pig? Still, what s it to do with marrying 
 Laure?" 
 
 "The a story." The Texan was speaking. "But 
 don t start Papa Prosper on it now. You see " 
 Virgil paused suddenly, dell s back was to him. 
 And that pitiless silence fell ; the two had not spoken 
 directly to each other since that night. Not as man 
 to man. Through and to me the necessary speech 
 was made. And the thing was shriveling my soul.
 
 38 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I had hoped Clell would put away that savagery 
 down here. But Virgil looked at me with his faint 
 patient smile and nodded. Our hosts did not no 
 tice. Allesjandro was already on his lugger poling 
 her out through the lily masses, and midstream 
 I heard his: "Blow, San Anton e!" 
 
 We were alone in Virgil s world. He had promis 
 ed us loneliness. I looked across the broad bayou. 
 Beyond its floating gardens the prairie cane stretch 
 ed pathlessly northward. To eastward lay the first 
 of the chain of tidal lakes. At the near point their 
 sunken shores become a gleam of milk white shells 
 and here an oak grove grew. But over this thin 
 shore-margin began again the trembling prairie, 
 stretching inimitably southward. Back of us lay 
 Isle Bonne s cypress swamp, a gray wondrous jun 
 gle with the moss plumes hanging to the black 
 water. 
 
 The Texan saw my lingering glance. "Ain t they 
 trees? It s the last untouched cypress, I reckon 
 in all Louisiana. By Mighty, but the s timbeh in 
 there ! Worth ninety thousand dollehs, and the old 
 son-of-a-gun, well, go look in his shack there and 
 see how he and Laure keep house !" 
 
 Inside the sto I saw as much as eight tins of corn 
 ed beef and six of condensed milk and two sacks
 
 ISLE BONNE 39 
 
 of flour and one of green coffee. Also a stack 
 of mink and muskrat pelts and a bundle of rusty 
 traps and a barrel of red wine with an agate mea 
 sure under the tap. The rest of the shelves were 
 free of merchandise. And yet, looking on through 
 that dismal store I saw the sunshine falling on a 
 brilliant red carpet square on which sat a quaint 
 table and on that a lace covering quite severely ele 
 gant. Through the far door the bees were hum 
 ming against the wet glitter of honeysuckle, jas 
 mine, blackberry bloom sprawling all over their stilt 
 ed hives above the water, and up on the latanier 
 palms to the enshrouding gray of the mossed cy 
 press. Isle Bonne was a sad fizzle as an island a 
 mere half mile of shell reef that a twelve-hour wind 
 tide would cover from bayou side to the spiked 
 swamp. 
 
 But Virgil, who had come with me into the sto 
 suddenly smote his palms. "We don t want his big 
 cypress ! We want to dig a main ditch behind it to 
 get our two holdin s drained to the same pumping 
 plant. And the old crab, when we offer him forty 
 thousand dollehs just for a quit-claim when he had 
 no manneh of title to show, that girl wouldn t let 
 him. So the company will have to go ahead and dis 
 possess em soon as the Supreme Cou t confirms
 
 40 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 our deeds from the French line of em. Sho 
 they neve had a chance but I couldn t make em 
 see it. Spent two years tryin to save somethin 
 out of the wreck for Papa and his girl, and along 
 comes that boa d of directors and say I hung up 
 the job on account of heh!" 
 
 "Mary remarked," I mused : "that there was a 
 girl." 
 
 "First, the s a job," he muttered, and then his high 
 smile came : "Only it s right lonesome here. Used 
 to come around the island to pass the time of day 
 with Prosper, and she why, she ran inside and 
 closed the blinds like I was a blamed pizen snake. 
 But what can you expaict when they were pirates 
 the Drouillots and used to run their slave brigs 
 right up into John-the-Fool and hide em. Only 
 Laure, she s gone to school in N Awlyins convent, 
 and ought to know betteh." 
 
 His worn blue eyes smiled again. "Well, we ll 
 hang out here until Big Jim sends the launch around 
 fo us. To-morrow" he eyed Clell who was grimly 
 silent as ever : "the dredge will start. Yes, seh 
 I expaict it will. They told me I m crazy they 
 told me to lay up the machines no mo money this 
 year unless we win the case so Driscoll can sell 
 the bonds. And I told em the work would go
 
 ISLE BONNE 41 
 
 on I took an option on that ten thousand acres on 
 the outside personal and specified, and contracted 
 to drive a fo ty-foot ditch through to it just to 
 show em how / believed ! Yes, seh drive that old 
 mud hook into salt water by Septembeh. Maybe 
 I m crazy all right; I know land, and I know 
 men and to-morrow the dredge starts. That old 
 machine is me personal and specified." 
 
 Then I first saw the man s rugged weariness. He 
 had been doubted, censured, laughed at. He was not 
 the sort you would call a dreamer but he had vi- 
 sioned the most daring of all the south coast re 
 clamation schemes ; he was not what you would term 
 a lover, but a rare sweetness was about him always. 
 
 He raised his hand to indicate the gray pall of the 
 forest. His forefinger seemed to feel for the faint 
 air. 
 
 "Listen," he murmured : "You can hear it, Doc 
 tor Dick. The gulf is singin at me. Behind the 
 woods the salt prairie begins, and behind that the 
 last reef. They told me it couldn t be done that 
 Isle Bonne was the last sweet land, but I ll build 
 my levee thirty miles the other side. And drive the 
 sea out with the biggest pumps eve put into a ditch 
 in Louisiana I got em, too! Right across this 
 island, rusting in the swamp at John-the-Fool.
 
 42 
 
 That s what makes me so sorry my big pumps 
 rustin , and that boa d of directors tell me to lay 
 up work fo a year. That s why I took that option 
 personal and specified. If I don t finish the ditch 
 why, then I m broke personal and specified. And 
 that Cleveland f el-lo sayin I laid down on the work 
 fo a a girl!" 
 
 She had come out as the last soft scorn of 
 his voice died away. Papa Prosper ambled after 
 with his tray and coffee cups. Upon the gallerie 
 rail the mistress of Isle Bonne sat herself and look 
 ed us over briefly. She had the air of conceding 
 an indifferent point to hospitality; but serve 
 coffee? "jamais famais!" I heard her murmur. 
 
 "Dis isle, messieurs," went on Prosper, "he ain t 
 much fo trade. So we eat up ou sto . She fine 
 while she last. Now dat sto gone I sit here on my 
 gallerie. Mebbe sometime I go to N Awlyins and 
 spend two dollehs a day just lak a millionaire. But 
 Mademoiselle Laure, neve she let me sell ou leetle 
 isle. All dem leetle birds dey sing in all dem big 
 trees, say mon chere Laure; is not dat enough fo 
 happy ?" 
 
 Laure shrugged with relenting grace; perhaps 
 at closer glance the New York fel-los were not so 
 bad. "Happy? Antoine, he went off to see the
 
 ISLE BONNE 43 
 
 world and now what you think? He say it not 
 so much to be a barbeh! He d rather come back 
 and marry me." She laughed her triumph; then 
 her long-lashed and star-deep eyes narrowed side- 
 wise in their glance upon my friend Clell. There 
 was a suggestion that her interest was for him 
 alone though her words were to us all. 
 
 "Papa, the gentlemen come fo to buy our 
 island?" 
 
 Papa shrugged ; I disclaimed any such sinister pur 
 pose. 
 
 Isle Bonne s mistress looked at me as if she 
 might easily suspect me of lying. "Then you are 
 engineers ?" 
 
 "Not at all, mademoiselle." 
 
 "Then you are detectives? Some-a-times the s 
 bad men hide out in the deep swamp. Old Pierre! 
 Papa, yo remembeh Old Pierre what one-a-time 
 kill somebody?" 
 
 "Dat ol scoundrel wan time he stole my fish 
 trap." 
 
 Laure clapped her hands. Somewhere, by our 
 heads, as we sat along the sto gallerie, a tree-frog 
 was singing in the honeysuckle that was massed over 
 Papa Prosper s rain barrels. "Be still you ! Papa, 
 make dat frawg be still!"
 
 44 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Papa rustled the honeysuckle indolently. Laure 
 laid that ever-so-distant glance of hers on my dis 
 trait friend again. "Then I reckon, you are fawt- 
 chune-tellers ?" 
 
 Clell laughed the first of his old real honest 
 laughs since well, the night of Virgil s challenge. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, can you tell mine, now? Doc 
 tor Dick, I d like to know !" 
 
 Virgil was watching the two. And I well, I 
 had not known Clell all his life for nothing. He 
 made friends of women with fatal ease all of them 
 in the old days, with his boy s wholesomeness, 
 his good looks, his saying to them of the things 
 they wished best to believe of themselves. Since 
 his manhood it had not changed greatly. I had 
 wondered at Mary s patience, yet he had loved her 
 best and truest. After all they like his sort. He had 
 not found himself that was the trouble. 
 
 Our small saint ignored his query. "Papa, maybe 
 they come fo to dig pirates treasure ?" 
 
 I laughed then. Virgil relented to a smile. Clell 
 turned to me good-humoredly. "Doctor Dick, that 
 would be best of all !" 
 
 Laure did not relish our taking of it. "Why, we 
 got mo pirate hide-ups in our reefs than most any 
 body! Some-a-time I let you dig one."
 
 ISLE BONNE 45 
 
 "Thank you," retorted Clell gravely, "just show 
 me!" 
 
 The tree-frog was yelling again. In that sweet 
 noon silence it was terrific. Laure clapped her 
 hands and the disturber keyed lower. But when 
 the talk resumed he yelled the louder. 
 
 "Dat little tree-hop " said Papa Prosper, and 
 began to part the honeysuckle masses. He found 
 the tree-frog and threw him gently off the gallerie. 
 "Now, it ll take him an hour to get back in ou cis 
 tern and we can talk a while, m sieu." 
 
 But we couldn t. The ambitious tree-hop was 
 back behind the gallerie rail in half the time and 
 resuming his discords. Papa scolded and hurled 
 him again into watery exile under the gallerie posts. 
 Virgil arose and paced the sto . I saw his eyes go 
 out across the pathless salt marsh past the blue 
 wall of the cypress forests. 
 
 "This old cuss and his tree-frawg! For six 
 years I been comin here to pass the time of day. 
 Papa and his tree-frawg and his pig in the barrel 
 hoop and Laure; and out there, Doctor Dick, my 
 dredge is goin to junk, and the lilies are fillin the 
 ditches I dug, and the sweet land is getting saltier 
 year by year. And up nawth Driscoll and his 
 crowd hold off that money and tell me to lay up
 
 46 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 till we win and the bonds are sold." Always he 
 came back to the matter ; down in his soul he knew 
 he was edging close to failure at last; he had thrown 
 the last dice for our fortunes. And Laure of the 
 isle, refusing his compromise, three years ago, and 
 insisting on the battle which the New Orleans law 
 yers had made, had brought him to the breaking 
 point. 
 
 She suddenly, it appeared, discovered a new 
 means to ruffle him. Watching her mobile and ten 
 der mouth, I saw it tighten with demure guile. Per 
 haps she guessed some hidden issue between them; 
 at any rate, a sparkle came to her eyes as she turned 
 on my stubborn young friend from the city, and 
 struck her small brown hands together. 
 
 "My honey bees! M sieu, would you see my 
 honey bees ?" 
 
 "I would that very thing." Clell sat up straighter : 
 "Honey bees or pirates or or anything, Made 
 moiselle Laure, that is of your little isle. A won 
 derful little isle, and I I m sorry!" 
 
 She looked at him with rare attentiveness. And 
 under her lashes to the other man, who could never 
 tell her he was sorry. Then she clapped her hands 
 with a sheer joy it seemed. "And my little gown 
 that came from Paris? Ah, m sieu, you neve
 
 ISLE BONNE 47 
 
 thought that? One time I went to the opera in 
 N Awlyins oh, very fine it was! I stayed at my 
 grand-aunt s, Madam Beauvais on the Esplanade, 
 and went to a ball of Comus. Oh, that was very 
 fine, too! Madam Beauvais say to Papa Prosper: 
 You must mortgage some land so Laure can have 
 a gown from Paris, what you think of that, 
 m sieu? Ah, and then back to Isle Bonne I came 
 like Cinderella!" 
 
 We looked after them, Clell laughing as they dis 
 cussed gowns and the eccentricities of tree-frawgs. 
 Virgil s old wist fulness came : "That boy he cain t 
 make me hate him after all." 
 
 Papa Prosper offered more coffee and sighed over 
 his tree-hop. 
 
 "Dat frawg, m sieu, is crazy fo conversation. 
 Wan time I held cou t, and fo times I told my con 
 stable to chase dat frawg off my rain barrel." 
 
 "You a justice?" 
 
 Papa stirred his coffee. "Fo times I been elected, 
 m sieu. I neve yet got up to the riveh to qualify, 
 but they keep on electin me. Wan time I had a 
 marryin . A Manilaman from Grand Lake and a 
 Chino lady from Bassa Bassa camp. Dat lady she 
 say: Papa, huccome yo marry us w en yo no got 
 no papeh fo justice? So to please dat lady I got
 
 48 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 out my seed catalogue. Dat Manilaman say. Yo 
 sho dis marryin stick on dat seed book? I say: 
 Cou se she stick you go home and see if she not 
 stick. M sieu, she stuck fine dat lady got six ba 
 bies now, and five shares in wan shrimp seine." 
 
 We passed a sunlit day. To the landing of my 
 friend Prosper come all the lake and bayou folk, 
 shrimp skiffs, trade boats, pirogues, derelict house 
 boats from the great river to the North from 
 Barataria to Butte La Rose, from Isle Grande to 
 Whisky Bay from the orange groves of the lower 
 coast to the sugar plantations of Terrebonne the 
 wanderers came to throw a head-line to the wharf, 
 "holler out" the justice and stay, some ten minutes 
 to drip coffee ; some five years to catch the crabs and 
 muskrat. Papa sat on his gallerie and welcomed 
 and waved them amiably on. Of course the Yan 
 kees well, one never could tell about Yankees. 
 They were an uncertain lot, forever diving off in the 
 deep swamp with blue-prints, and unloading ma 
 chinery on their forlorn landing in the sun-beaten 
 cane around Point Coquille, and cursing the mos 
 quitoes and the heat and the damp and the snakes 
 and the cajuns and then coming out to sit on 
 Papa s tranquil gallerie and watch Laure who didn t 
 know how to be rich when she was. Papa, the ad-
 
 ISLE BONNE 49 
 
 venturous soul, would have traveled at least as 
 far as Mawgan City; but Laure? She preferred to 
 sit here and watch curiously these profane strangers. 
 
 "I would like to see dat Sheecawgo," went on 
 Prosper. "Wan time Ettienne he work for the fish 
 commish, and dey took him to Washington. Sooch 
 sights he tell me of. Dat government Ettienne 
 say sooch a dome he got ! And dat prasident ! Et 
 tienne say he walk right in and look up dat dome 
 sacre so high! Ettienne he say neve he think he 
 see dat. Dat prasident he sit at one end makin laws 
 and dat congress he sit at odder end makin laws, 
 and Ettienne say sooch talk neve could he make 
 out. M sieu, I sho lak to see dat prasident and 
 his dome I believe so." 
 
 He sighed and looked at the wilful wood saint 
 who would not travel for fear Yankees would come 
 and cut her mighty trees, putting pull-boats along 
 the shell shores with steel cables like the tentacles 
 of horrible monsters to tear out the life-blood from 
 the forest s heart, turning the lilied pools to slime 
 with their dirty rafts and quarter-boats. And the 
 drainage ditches, little better with their black mud 
 levees traveling the iridescent sheen of the trembling 
 prairies that had stirred at nothing before save the 
 whir of the wild duck s wing and the pirogue run-
 
 50 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ner s paddle. She had been quizzing Clell in my 
 absence. She greeted me with quite friendly 
 glances ; it was only for the land boss that her scorn 
 was reserved. 
 
 "Ah, I show you my garden, M sieu Doctor 
 and you" she put out her brown hand with rare 
 sudden gaiety to Clell. "My poor little bees tum 
 bling down all a-time in their houses into the black 
 water I" 
 
 Poor swamp bees indeed! Never would Papa 
 Prosper wade out to put new stilts under their 
 hives. The decayed boxes hung at all angles in a 
 wild sweet tangle of iris, red flags, palms, banana 
 trees, figs and hyacinths; and over them the orioles 
 and scarlet tanagers flitted in the crepe myrtle and 
 jasmine clambering the ancient trunks to the gloom 
 of the moss. 
 
 "Le Bon Dieu, He looked after my bees, but 
 somehow we neve get any honey. Papa say some 
 time he read his seed catalogue and see what it say 
 about honey if it marry folks so well, it sho ought 
 to know about honey." And she glanced up brightly 
 at the tall young Yankee. "If I marry a man he 
 got to know all about honey." 
 
 I left them in that swamp garden with the dron 
 ing of the bees and the flit of the tanagers about
 
 ISLE BONNE 51 
 
 them what had I to do with honey ? I got my feet 
 well wet trying to get back to Papa Prosper s gal- 
 lerie, for the passage from the bee garden was along 
 the bottom of an overturned dugout across two 
 broken iron kettles. If you fell off this bridge the 
 kettles were thoughtfully filled with water to receive 
 you. I was sleepy and annoyed. Papa Prosper had 
 already excused himself for his siesta. Virgil sat 
 back against the rail, his sombrero over his eyes. 
 The warmth, the droning bees, the traitorous con 
 tent of Laure s isle well, I couldn t keep an eye 
 open longer, and was off, sitting in my chair. 
 
 A mosquito it was that brought me out of that 
 warm and sticky nap. One of the big, deep-sea go 
 ing mosquitoes speeding from out the western gulf 
 marshes, a herald of the oncoming evening hordes. 
 He hit me squarely on the nose and I opened my 
 eyes upon a splash of gold which was the sun level 
 over the lake. And I rubbed my eyes again to stare 
 at the phantasmagoria that an hour had wrought. 
 The mirrored water had disappeared from the cove ; 
 it was a wondrous garden of deep purple and waxy 
 green from shore to shore, the wild hyacinths mov 
 ing slowly, a tide of bloom drifting from out the 
 sweet water of the upper swamp to die in the salt 
 passes of the gulf. And far beyond the barrier I
 
 52 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 heard Laure singing. I saw her now the two of 
 them in her tiny green pirogue, a slender needle 
 boat that seemed to quiver beneath dell s weight. 
 It was never fashioned for two unless, perhaps, 
 for lovers. 
 
 Virgil sat across the gallerie rail regarding me. 
 I knew he had just turned from the two in the 
 canoe when he heard my stir. 
 
 "The launch is comin ," he said quietly. "I can 
 hear her motor. We ll get to our own camp to 
 night. Redfield" he motioned to the hyacinth 
 blockade "we ll pick him up outside the lilies she 
 cain t get in till the drift passes." 
 
 "They don t seem to care," I answered "either 
 of them." 
 
 The Texan looked up slowly and in silence; then 
 his patient smile came. 
 
 "Doctor Dick," he went on at length, "I stepped 
 aside once fo him that town man. I played square 
 with him fo Mary s sake. I brought him down 
 here fo Mary s sake. Now I wondeh what sort of 
 stuff is in him if he can play square with me. I 
 stepped aside fo him." 
 
 "Virgil," I retorted, "do you love her this 
 girl?"
 
 ISLE BONNE 53 
 
 "Cain t you see? When they sent me down here 
 to put through the ditches she was a little thing, all 
 eyes and laigs, who used to peek out of this do at 
 the Yankees who were tryin to buy the land. Then 
 we started to work behind the island, and then the 
 big fight came. And I hung on when the rest quit. 
 I stuck on the job when the big stawm came and 
 the sea went ove Isle Bonne eight feet deep. She 
 was a little thing, and I carried her to the boats 
 and she neve fo gave me fo puttin hands on her. 
 And then I watched her grow; and all the time we 
 drove the ditches through her prairie, she hated me. 
 I thought, maybe well, we neve could make em 
 take a dolleh in compromise, so the directors fought 
 it to the finish with Prosper s lawyers. And the 
 finish ll come now they ll lose and I m the man 
 that did it. She hates me I m the land pirate. 
 She s neve let me say two words to her. If she 
 could beat me maybe I d have a chance. And now, 
 Redfield well, he s a town man, and he can talk." 
 He was still, looking into the wall of gray-mossed 
 cypress above the white shell beaches of Isle Bonne. 
 "And I promised Mary I d send him back to her 
 a man. Yes, seh fo Mary!" 
 
 The wood saint was waving gaily to me from the
 
 54 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 flower-locked prison. When she noticed Virgil, her 
 hand was still. Around the point the rescuing 
 launch was speeding; she watched it with hostile 
 interest.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BARON 
 
 I SLEPT that night on some ill-smelling blankets 
 under a mosquito bar in a corrugated iron shack 
 after a rush eastward from Isle Bonne woods 
 through a shadowy lake, about a far marsh point 
 and then up a forty- foot canal which turned west 
 ward again through an illimitable stretch of prairie 
 cane behind the island. 
 
 We had retired in the starlight and in such si 
 lence as you of the town can not dream of. Some 
 where to southward was the murmur of the gulf, 
 faint, eerie, hardly a breath on the still air. But 
 the morning showed that we were at the abandoned 
 pumping plant of the Prairie Meadows Land Com 
 pany, and westward from it the canal still ran like 
 a bright arrow through the rozo cane which was 
 tawny and green and all alive with flecks of sun 
 and shade and rustlings in the breeze. A narrow 
 ridge of black earth followed the canal to the van- 
 
 55
 
 56 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ishing point either way; just here the channel wid 
 ened to a basin about which were great heaps of 
 plunder under the iron roofed sheds. Sacks of con 
 crete, barrels of cement, lumber, coal, oil tanks and 
 machinery ill-housed and rusted and with grass 
 growing forlornly in crevices where the birds had 
 scattered seed ; a cook-house with the windows dirty 
 and staring over it all the silence of failure, the 
 man s size job hung as at a dismal gibbet. 
 
 I found Williams looking down in a twenty-five 
 foot excavation where the scummy pools covered 
 the frames of the first concrete he had sunk about 
 his piling before the directors halted his attack. A 
 single old colored man was with him, the watchman 
 of the deserted plant, who was explaining some af 
 fair of the previous week. 
 
 "Dey done shot at me, Misteh Williams." The 
 old fellow raised his stick and pointed northward 
 to the blue wall of cypress which was the nearer 
 side of Laure s isle : "Yes, suh dey done snuck out 
 o John-the-Fool and gib me mah wa nin. Fust 
 dey gib me mah sign, and den dey shot." 
 
 "Who did?" 
 
 "Dem ole pirate folkses. Nex boat Ah m goin 
 out front to de river neveh no good come outen 
 dem Drouillots fo culled folks. Reckon ole Ar-
 
 THE BARON 57 
 
 mand s ghost done snuck back when yo start to cut- 
 tin up his island. 
 
 "Uncle Piney, you go get us some breakfast," 
 Virgil said, and smiled at me aside. "I ll send you 
 out front if you want to go." But when the old 
 fellow had hobbled away, the land boss face grew 
 long. "Last nigger I could keep on the job here 
 the old yarns about this place got them clean scared 
 away." He looked about the abandoned plant, and 
 the old patient twitch came to his lean lips. "All 
 right. This ain t my doin . Up the ditch, Doctor 
 Dick see that smoke? That s me that old mud- 
 hook. That levee is goin up clean to seaward by 
 September or the s one Texas man I know ll be 
 planted. That s me personal and specified or- 
 dehs or no ordehs. I m saving that option on ten 
 thousand acres that the company was willin to let 
 slide." 
 
 A tiny plume of smoke to the west was all the 
 sign of life in that green and yellow silence the 
 clam-shell dredge fighting at the end of the unfin 
 ished canal. One man had not quit of all the 
 quitters. 
 
 We walked about the melancholy ruin and break 
 fasted in the shade of Uncle Piney s shack with the 
 stinging black gnats dancing in one s vision. Clcll
 
 58 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 had hardly spoken, even to me this morning; it 
 seemed the specter of failure sat grinning at him 
 also. 
 
 "Those New York fel-los don t know the dredge 
 is runnin . They told me to lay her up with the 
 work on the pumps." 
 
 "Well," I put in, "just how did you get the 
 money ?" 
 
 "Money?" he smiled benignly, as one might to 
 foolish questions of finance from a child. "Nobody s 
 got any money much. Big Jim and the fel-los on 
 the dredge why, they just believe that s all. And 
 I got oil on my word that I d win Doctor Dick, 
 I just made em see." 
 
 I took a stalk of cane and walked out past the 
 sheds where eighty thousand dollars worth of ma 
 chinery were rusting and two thousand sacks of 
 cement were turning to stone, and thrust it down in 
 the salt swamp ooze outside the levee. There was 
 no bottom; the stuff was thinner every foot of the 
 way. 
 
 "I understand now, the story of the baby buggy," 
 I said dryly. "Virgil, have you the nerve to say 
 that some day you ll sell this for farms?" 
 
 "Yes, seh. If I have to stand em on end and 
 dry em out."
 
 THE BARON 59 
 
 "It s just as well," I went on, "that the board of 
 directors have never seen it. I couldn t quite an 
 swer for them." 
 
 The Texan looked gravely at me. "Seh ?" 
 
 "I m glad I came down to inspect it instead of 
 Mr. Driscoll." 
 
 "The was a man on the Brazos once who insinu 
 ated that I was a crook," continued the man from 
 the short-grass country. "Sho , I hate to tell about 
 it only the coroner s jury acquitted me, Doctor. 
 But I reckon I can see what you mean. One of 
 the people that bought stock was a widda woman 
 and some friends of mine; so if I lose, I m a crook. 
 All right I take the chance." 
 
 And when we were off again in the launch speed 
 ing up the canal to the vanishing point in the float 
 ing prairie, the Texan pointed southward. "Some 
 times, when the sea comes up outside, you can al 
 most feel this floteau shake with the poundin . 
 When the big stawms come, it s a right lonesome 
 country." 
 
 I well believed. In half an hour we swept out 
 of the canal into a great pool that stretched north 
 ward into the fringe of the moss-plumed woods. 
 A mere cove it was, but beyond it I thought there 
 was a house, perched, after the fashion of the
 
 60 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 swamp dwellers, on stilts above the storm tides and 
 the black swamp water. The Texan stopped the 
 launch abruptly between the overhanging walls of 
 wild cane with the smoke plume far ahead. I saw 
 in the last fringe of the dying forest, two great 
 brick chimneys rearing above some patches of man 
 grove. We floated slowly on toward the forest 
 cove. 
 
 The Texan raised his hand. They tried plantin 
 once cane and rice, and then the sea came in on 
 em in 54. The was a big sugar house and a 
 dwellin somewhere here where old Pierre Drouillot 
 worked his niggers. But I expaict he wasn t any 
 better than the rest of em the old pirate ones. 
 Now, Prosper, hangin on to his shell ridge on the 
 other side the island and fishin his crabs, is a gen 
 tleman only he ain t any manneh of sense. He 
 hung on to his swamp here for fo ty years fo no 
 other reason than because it was give to em by the 
 king of Spain. That s the word he sent the cou t 
 he ain t no manneh of sense. And Laure well, I 
 don t know. I got no call to fight a laidy." 
 
 He was staring ahead from the launch and spoke 
 as if to himself: "Stawms and stockbrokers and 
 women a man cain t stop fo em." He looked 
 curiously again into the forest cove: "And while
 
 THE BARON 61 
 
 we re passin I ll introduce you to the Baron of 
 John-the-Fool. I expaict I will." 
 
 "The baron?" 
 
 He smiled with his gentle tolerance, even at Clell 
 who would not greet him. Then, swinging the 
 wheel over, the boat drifted on into this glade of the 
 sunken forest. On, a hundred yards and we were 
 enclosed by the sepulchral cypress. I can not de 
 scribe the sensation of the change from the glitter 
 of the prairie to that spot of silence. The spikes of 
 the huge trees thrust up out of the black clear 
 water, and to them hung the fantastic moss plumes. 
 Only one thing of color relieved the gray-brown 
 light of the flooded woods and that was the latanier 
 palms a single clump of which sat with an unreal 
 stage effect behind the platform to which we had 
 drifted. On that platform, hung from trunk to 
 trunk above the water, sat a slab and palmetto hut 
 with a mud chimney rising at one end. To the cy 
 press spikes beneath was moored a flat-end John- 
 boat in which sat a lank pointer-pup apparently 
 waiting for some one to assist him up to his aerial 
 home. 
 
 "Hi, you poor web-footed kyoodle," murmured 
 Virgil, "where is the baron?" 
 
 The kyoodle grinned innocently. Virgil lifted the
 
 62 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 johnboat paddle and slammed it mightily upon the 
 boards. And there waddled out of the swamp 
 shack the most curious figure of a man I had ever 
 seen. Vast and rotund was he, with a faded sash 
 of silken brilliance about his waist, and in his green 
 hat was stuck a rooster feather. He removed a 
 remarkable pipe from his mouth, and then bowed 
 down to us, with astounding ease, seeing that the 
 effort made him wheeze and all but wrinkled his 
 eyes shut. Then one of them popped wide open, 
 brightly upon us ; and his vast roguish laughter fol 
 lowed. 
 
 "Ah, the gentlemen have arrived ! Allesjandro 
 assist the gentlemen!" He pounded on the plat 
 form. "You will pardon me, messieurs, but my 
 pipe eh, my pipe! It is twenty- four inches long 
 and twenty-four years old, and must be smoked 
 with extreme care. A pipe, messieurs, to go with 
 good wine, friends and talk of women we have 
 loved. Allesjandro attendez!" 
 
 And around that shack came the manikin Ma- 
 nilaman who had brought us -to Isle Bonne in his 
 lugger yesterday. I was astonished. Allesjandro 
 crowed with delight. Ah, the Senors certainly! 
 He reached a boat-hook to Virgil s craft, jabbering
 
 THE BARON 63 
 
 in Spanish-French and execrable English. Wel 
 come to the baron s. Yes yes he had told all 
 about us; his master was delighted; we must come 
 up for coffee and conversation. He gave us a hand, 
 two hands anything. 
 
 His master gave us a benign eye. There was 
 a rare air of the world in the salutation in the mid 
 dle of that impossible swamp. And a bit of the 
 clown, too, as he twiddled the shank of his pipe. 
 He surveyed us from a benevolent amplitude of 
 satisfaction with himself and with fortune; so a 
 good round monk might have hastened to succor 
 two wayfarers to his shelter for the night. What 
 with the length of his pipe and the width of his 
 stomach he had some trouble in passing his door 
 but he welcomed us there with a mischievous grace. 
 
 Outside Virgil was tying his boat to one of the 
 crazy piles supporting the baronial hall. The baron 
 waved to him condescendingly. 
 
 "My good friend and bad luck to him and his 
 schemes has not introduced us as gracefully as he 
 might. You are Doctor Richard Rainey, and this is 
 Mr. Redfield is it not so? I am Baron John de 
 Vedrinnes there is a good deal more to it, but let 
 that be. Welcome !"
 
 64 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "How" I nearly gasped "did you know us?" 
 
 "Ah!" He closed his jester s eye and grew apo 
 plectic. "Le marquise !" 
 
 And he bowed again, after the fashion of a por 
 poise that recalled its dancing lessons of a previous 
 incarnation. Then I saw behind him a small and 
 not at all unpleasing breakfast table laid and at it, 
 regarding us with complete composure, our hunter 
 of honey of Isle Bonne. 
 
 The baron exploded with his appreciation of our 
 surprise. He held his sides and the pipe. Alles- 
 jandro, with fervent pleasure, was drawing chairs 
 for us. Virgil came in, took off his hat with some 
 amiable patience at this foolery, and merely watched 
 us. 
 
 Laure, presiding at the coffee and I recall what 
 a mass of rare and battered old bronze was the 
 baron s coffee urn looked with long sidewise de- 
 mureness at dell s reaching for a place beside her. 
 
 "I told him all about you. Two Yankee fel-los. 
 And he was in the awmy, and the Yankees he has 
 killed it isn t polite to speak about at breakfast." 
 
 "How did you get here?" we burst out together, 
 disregarding that melancholy reminder of the baron 
 and other Yankee fel-los. 
 
 "My running pirogue through the deep swamp.
 
 THE BARON 65 
 
 There were some honey bees swarming, and Papa 
 Prosper, he just let them go which-away." 
 
 Follow a honey bee through that fantastic swamp ! 
 I sat down and regarded her. She was cutting 
 bread. Virgil eyed her with patience. She had 
 not spoken to him. Then I saw Allesjandro, be 
 hind the master s chair, motioning for silence. The 
 baron had closed his eyes and was growling a long 
 Latin prayer. I closed one eye the other was upon 
 Laure who also had one closed. Merely one the 
 other winked at Allesjandro. On that prayer 
 droned. It was interminable. The baron appeared 
 to claw it out of his whiskers, but the rich old 
 medieval phrases never faltered. Yet, at length, 
 I was sure he was laughing. Then Laure mani 
 festly giggled. And the majordomo suddenly 
 howled with glee. Then they all roared. Clell and 
 I opened our eyes injuredly. Virgil had a calm 
 smile. 
 
 The joke was on us. The Baron de Vedrinnes 
 was protesting his apologies. "Ah, that Babisch! 
 Gentlemen, I am trying to pay off my score with 
 him. He was my tutor in Hungary that damned 
 Capuchin. Four hundred florins a year and his 
 wine he got for mauling his prayers into me and 
 after eighty years I can not forget a word of them.
 
 66 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 That was what I got when I was a boy dingdong 
 singsong and now I can not refrain. Four hun 
 dred florins and all the wine he could drink, got 
 Babisch and when he had his wine first, the pray 
 ers were twice as long !" 
 
 He wiped his eyes; it was rude to a guest, but 
 life was made to joke at. There was a mosquito 
 on my neck would I allow him courteously to burn 
 it off with his hot pipe? Ah, there it was done 
 and a mere blister would not matter ! No one could 
 love a Barataria mosquito no, no ! There were too 
 many of them there would not be enough love to 
 go around ! 
 
 Then he went on complacently to tell of himself. 
 No one else got in a word. He told of his youth in 
 a military school in Buda-pest, and how, later, in 
 some political troubles of the forties, he had had to 
 leave Hungary. There was a hint of a woman, and 
 he winked with vast wickedness. Then he wan 
 dered about Europe, a penniless soldier of for 
 tune, and came to America, entering a Florida regi 
 ment of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Then 
 he made a fortune in the Louisiana lottery, and 
 when that concern was squelched, he lost it. He 
 had been a slave runner, privateer, gambler, what 
 not and it was all good. Life had been a pageant
 
 THE BARON 67 
 
 and he had seen ; a brawl and he had fought ; a kiss 
 and he had the sweetness; but why now, he was 
 retired to the abysmal forest of Isle Bonne ah, 
 that, he did not tell us ! 
 
 But life was still good when he could wear his 
 rooster s feather in a green hat, and burn mosqui 
 toes off of Yankee necks with a hot pipe. Ah, yes 
 accept the rice jambalaya, the coffee and bread and 
 shrimp. His man Friday the butler-fisherman, 
 Allesjandro, just now squirming so delightedly be 
 hind his chair he and God saw to it somehow, that 
 there was enough to eat; and when the palmetto 
 roof of the baronial hall leaked, the baron merely 
 ordered his bed moved from the larger leaks to the 
 smaller ones and played his phonograph under the 
 mosquito bar until the morning. 
 
 We listened to all this and it was the last touch 
 to the impossible adventure. The baron was grati 
 fied that we had come we gentlemen of the great 
 world. No one came to see him except his Cajun- 
 Filipino neighbors from the far chenieres over the 
 south coast marshes. And they were shy furtive 
 men with whom one could not speak of affairs of 
 chancellories and empire demarcations. He would 
 put us up we must stay a week, a month a year? 
 There was an amazing deal to talk of.
 
 68 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I couldn t get in a word. No one could. The 
 baron shot quite about the globe in his archaic re 
 lation of events and surmises. I answered as best 
 I could, numberless questions. How was that affair 
 in the Balkans? And the stealing of Mona Lisa? 
 Who was Franz Joseph s ambassador at Washing 
 ton now? And did we like Barataria, the legend- 
 haunted ? 
 
 Our small wood saint listened with condescend 
 ing composure as she poured the cafe au lait con 
 dense. After all the world s way from crabs to 
 courts was not so far; she could well send Antoine 
 on and on to be a barbeh, and still be the confidante 
 of nobility. 
 
 Our noble friend waved Allesjandro aside when 
 he pressed us with more of his rice jambalaya. 
 "Our guests have breakfasted, they say. That is, 
 perhaps, our fortune we had reckoned on but 
 enough for three. And mademoiselle, she will have 
 a famous relish after her five o clock pursuit of her 
 honey bees." 
 
 I was watching them both, and I can not explain 
 just what firm conviction entered my mind that 
 Laure s honey bees were a myth. No no! There 
 was a mystery here. Allesjandro s ingenuous grin 
 at his master confirmed it.
 
 THE BARON 69 
 
 "Curious," drawled Virgil, "but I never saw a 
 honey bee in the deep swamp beyond the f orty-ar- 
 pent line. They s mostly on the cheniere." 
 
 She gave him a grimace ; he did not believe and 
 she knew it. The honey bees were clearly to delude 
 Yankee fel-los. Virgil, she feared, and was trying 
 to detest that was also clear. Was not his black 
 monster of a dredge tearing the heart from her 
 beloved island? Still, there was more than this 
 much more. I tried to guess at it, as she devoted her 
 demure interest to Clell; she drew him out of his 
 moroseness he laughed aloud again with her. 
 
 Virgil suddenly pushed back his chair. "Well, we 
 got to shag along, Doctor Dick. The new man " 
 he looked easily at Clell : "Big Jim is waitin f o to 
 organize his new crew." 
 
 The baron followed us to the edge of his plat 
 form with many protests yet I was sure he was 
 pleased that we were gone. He waved his pipe 
 airily: "Adieu, messieurs." 
 
 And his protegee shook her head. "All a-time 
 when honey bees run away, they make so much trou 
 ble. We very busy, messieurs !" 
 
 Clell came back to her suddenly and took her 
 hands: "Ah, but Mademoiselle Laure, it is going 
 to be lonesome here very; and could I come to
 
 70 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 see you sometime? Even if I am, you know a 
 Yankee, and a robber and all that sort of thing?" 
 
 He was eager and like his old self of the years 
 gone, and my heart stirred to see them laughing 
 together. The girl was confused by him a bit, and 
 then blithe with new adventure. 
 
 "M sieu, you may. Only please, not here at John- 
 the-Fool." She looked curiously at the Baron de 
 Vedrinnes who listened like a fond Newfoundland 
 to his mistress voice : "But around my island where 
 the lilies are, and the shell beaches and the oaks of 
 the cheniere. Oh, there I might show you many 
 things. And M sieu le Doctor, also." 
 
 She had no word for Virgil. He waited gravely 
 at the launch s engine, and when we were in, sent 
 it out of the forest cove into the hot glitter of the 
 salt marsh without word. It must have been two 
 miles down that monotonous ditch that we came to 
 the black dredge that filled the end. We ran along 
 side past the red quarter-boat that had housed the 
 crew. A tall man came out of the cavernous depths 
 from the engines, wiping his hands, and of Clell and 
 me he took not the smallest notice. His steady eyes 
 were on the land boss. 
 
 "Well, they got another. Hogjaw took to the 
 swamp."
 
 THE BARON 71 
 
 The Texan s level glance went to the boiler-room. 
 " Who s firin ?" 
 
 "Nobody. Brinton went out with a fever. 
 Weed broke his arm last Tuesday. And now, Hog- 
 jaw he was my last nigger." 
 
 There was a silence. And again I seemed to vi 
 sion the specter of failure limned out of the brassy 
 sky above the dying land. A crow was cawing 
 blatantly in a sunbaked and leprous cypress over 
 the line of glistening mud; a snowy egret wheeled 
 against the intolerable blue. 
 
 "I sent out front for some new niggers. Couldn t 
 get one. Crump sent his warnin out front to em. 
 The voodoo sign, and then somebody fired a load of 
 buckshot into the last bunch of niggers that we tried 
 to get from the river. That s what got Hog jaw 
 somebody sent him a sign when they heard he d 
 come to work for the Williams outfit." 
 
 The boss of the Williams outfit regarded his en 
 gineer quizzically. "I told you to cut loose at any 
 nigger that come near the dredge without ordehs." 
 
 "I never saw em. They must have sneaked out 
 of Isle Bonne and give Hogjaw his sign. Anyhow, 
 he blew this morning." 
 
 "Take a gun?" 
 
 "Stole your double-barrel."
 
 72 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Well," Virgil turned aside irrelevantly, "this 
 dredge has got to work. We cain t lay up a day, 
 niggers or no niggers." 
 
 "I know. Mangy and I tried to run her this 
 morning us two. I put Mangy to firing, but he 
 had to quit and cook dinner. You d better send 
 out front for a white fireman." 
 
 "I brought a man." The boss indicated Clell, in 
 differently. 
 
 The big engineer was reading my young friend 
 with pitiless deliberation. "We can bust him in, 
 maybe." 
 
 "We got to. I ll take the crane myself. Mangy 
 will stick. I ll get another watchman for the pump 
 plant there s nothing doing there for for a while. 
 But this ditch" his eye ran ahead through the dead 
 forest to the far shine of the pathless prairie 
 "we ll jam her through. You ll stick, Jim ?" 
 
 "You bet. Say, you know who s doing all this 
 dirt?" Big Jim pointed back to Isle Bonne s jun 
 gle. "That bunch the baron, and her. They got 
 your niggers they got em scared. They re going 
 to bust you. They ll dynamite this outfit if they 
 get a chance." He gestured again to the gray wall 
 of the swamp isle. "They ll get you, too. That 
 bunch is as much pirates as their great-grand-dads
 
 THE BARON 73 
 
 ever was. They got Crump and Hogjaw and ole 
 Doc Fortune hiding out there and them three s 
 some bad niggers. And for what tell me ?" 
 
 "I expaict they don t want the ditch dug. They 
 just think they ll wear us out with trouble and make 
 us lose our option. I reckon their lawyers know 
 our directors were pretty ready to throw up the 
 game, till I I went nawth and made em stick." 
 
 "That isn t it. That isn t what chases our nig 
 gers away. It s the old yarns about Isle Bonne and 
 how old Armand used to run his slave ship into this 
 cove back here and slit their necks if he had to, to 
 keep em from fallin into the government s hands. 
 You couldn t get one of em into Isle Bonne woods 
 on a bet they don t see nothin but pirates and 
 slavers and ghosts and let me tell you who s doin 
 it it s the baron." 
 
 The Texan was still silently contemplating the 
 latest failure on the man s size job. 
 
 "Well, I cain t stop fo no ghosts. It s costin 
 ninety dollehs a day to lay up, and " he broke off, 
 and was looking at Clell, the white-handed and im 
 maculate young man who had this stony hatred for 
 him. I knew what he was thinking; he had figured 
 his personal resources to the last precious penny 
 that two thousand dollars he had paid out to save
 
 74 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 dell s good name for Mary s sake had been his 
 last gamble. And Clell did not know ! Nor Mary ; 
 but I had guessed aright. I saw it in his worn eyes 
 when they fixed on the other man s disdain of him. 
 He stood troubledly gazing off to that pitiless sky 
 and the floating earth, the sea beyond biding its 
 time to leap and smite him again. Somewhere in 
 the north there was the gabble of bonds and courts, 
 of tricks and money-changing, but here the man 
 stood facing the failure. Love? What word was 
 that for him? That was something idlers chat 
 tered of. 
 
 He was looking at Clell again ; then quietly, he ad 
 dressed the first word to him that either had spoken 
 directly since that night when Mary had stood by 
 them, watching, listening, to the test. It was spoken 
 as if the thing had never been. 
 
 "I thought, when I brought you down they d be 
 a clerk s job holdin time on the men." 
 "I don t want a clerk s job." 
 "Seh?" 
 
 Clell motioned to the bottomless pools that lay 
 between us and the forest fringe at John-the-Fool. 
 "I didn t come for that. I want what men do and 
 alone."
 
 THE BARON 75 
 
 "The swamp?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "The sun you ain t used to it." 
 
 "I ll get used to it. I want" he stopped and 
 looked into the silence "that s what I came for 
 the smash of things and to win free." 
 
 The Texan pondered. "White-handed jobs are 
 pretty well cleaned out. Had a dynamite crew 
 ahead in the timbeh, but it s gone. The ain t any 
 pay-roll no mo . They ain t any watchman no mo . 
 They ain t anything no mo except Big Jim and me 
 and the cook. Redfield, the ain t much fo you 
 I tell you you are free to go if you want. Back 
 this ain t you world it s comin rough and hard 
 fo Jim and me " 
 
 "I want it rough and hard." 
 
 He looked the city man over patiently. "All 
 right You can go on the crane. Big Jim is the 
 runner. I don t know about the firm we ll break 
 Mangy in on the oil, I expaict. We ll drive that ma 
 chine, by Mighty fou teen hours a day! And the 
 heat and noise." 
 
 "Yes," the other man answered briefly. "But 
 there s one thing." 
 "Seh?"
 
 ;6 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "I ll work with you, and eat with you, and fight 
 it out but I will not speak to you until that debt 
 is paid." 
 
 The Texan looked with shrewd care into that 
 white calm face before him. The two were nearly 
 equal, but the older man was the heavier, stringier, 
 tougher; the short-grass country and the sea lands 
 both seemed to have knit into him something of their 
 fiber. I saw one gleam of resentment; then saw it 
 die. "All right, Redfield. You make good, remem- 
 beh. That dredge it s what I m bankin on now 
 I m fightin in the last ditch now. I reckon you 
 could make or break me, somehow. It ain t com 
 pany s money they told me to quit. But I m hold- 
 in to the option and that means the ditch clean 
 to salt water by Septembeh. You understand?" 
 
 The younger man nodded curtly. Big Jim was 
 watching with hard eyes. The boss went on slowly : 
 
 "We ll show you yo work. Beyond that noth 
 ing if you don t want a word from me. I m stand- 
 in fo you fo the sake of Mary. Yo cain t insult 
 me fo the sake of Mary. You owe me two thou 
 sand dollehs, and yo ll pay it at one hundred and 
 fifty a month. Is that square?" 
 
 Again the other nodded. The Texan turned to 
 me and his serene smile came. "But, Doctor Dick,
 
 THE BARON 77 
 
 I don t know what to do with you. Neve thought 
 I d come south and find things shot to pieces so. 
 Thought we d have a camp a decent camp fo a 
 white man. Well, I reckon, somehow, I can shoul- 
 deh you, too." 
 
 Then he turned forward on his beloved black 
 monster : "Come on, Redfield. To-day we start her 
 by Mighty! We start the three of us and the 
 ditch goes through." 
 
 Big Jim followed them watching. Mangy, the 
 cook, stuck his black head through the kitchen door, 
 staring after the boss. The silence was intolerable. 
 I looked at the white limbs of the dead cypress, their 
 funeral plumes of gray unstirred in the hot morn 
 ing. The changeless sheen of the floating prairie 
 was like a cat s back, sleek, treacherous as the stare 
 of the sky. It was the place to stage a hate for the 
 souls of men.
 
 CHAPTER Y 
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 
 
 THE dredge worked monotonously, but with 
 many stoppings all that forenoon. After a 
 silent dinner in the quarter-boat, Virgil came to me 
 with that old enigmatic gesture of his long forefinger 
 as if he were ever trying to hook his troubles away 
 from before his eyes. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, I got a scheme." 
 
 I smoked on complacently, hiding the outrage 
 within me. The cooking had been abominable, the 
 heat and silence a menace, then the noise of the 
 machine nerve-racking; and there was no escape. 
 
 "It s going to be pretty low down on you, Doctor 
 Dick. This man, Redfield" no longer was he Clell 
 to the Texan "he s got to shag with the bunch 
 and God help him if he breaks!" 
 
 "He ll never break." 
 
 The boss looked long at me. "You think so, seh ?" 
 
 "I know the stuff in him and his dad before 
 him." 
 
 78
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 79 
 
 -\ 
 "I ain t sayin . I ll give him a square shift and 
 
 nothin else. I m through. I give up Mary f o him ; 
 and now, damn him, I ll make him fo her! I m 
 through thinkin of this I " he looked off at the 
 dim blue wall of Isle Bonne woods: "well, I cain t 
 have this on my mind. I m on the job. So s Big 
 Jim. So s Redfield. So s the cook. Redfteld is 
 no better man to me than Mangy. I m just leavin 
 it to you that I don t love him. I tried, but " 
 he looked at me with his droll, patient smile. "Well, 
 it s a two-man game between him and me he can 
 hate me all he pleases but I want this work to go 
 on. If he don t break under it, he s a man and 
 I ll tell Mary so!" 
 
 "If Mary only knew how the thing stood; but 
 God bless her, she doesn t. She doesn t dream 
 it s half so so horrible!" 
 
 He smiled again gently. "Remembeh I tried 
 to love him and he wouldn t let me!" 
 
 He was going back to the fire room where the 
 new man stood waiting, and then turned to me. 
 "Forgot my scheme fo you. There isn t any place 
 for you here, Doctor Dick; the grub and the bunks 
 ain t all a gentleman and a philosopher like you 
 would hanker fo . I m goin to unload you on the 
 baron."
 
 8 JOHN .THE FOOL 
 
 "What?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "The old son-of-a-gun asked you to stay a year." 
 
 "But that s just his extravagant way of putting 
 it" 
 
 "We ll call his bluff. Besides" his thumb went 
 over his shoulder to the forest: "maybe you can 
 find out what s happenin to my niggers so curi 
 ously. And honey bees " he added, and a high 
 fond light went to his eyes. "You d make a plumb 
 fine detective." 
 
 I regarded him unseriously : "Virgil, do you mean 
 I m to ask that old derelict to put me up in his 
 camp ?" 
 
 "Exactly. Don t ask him, though. Go and 
 mooch in on him pleasantly and don t eve say how 
 long you may remain. He cain t kick it s a cus 
 tom of the country." 
 
 "Well," I said, and then I thought of our wood 
 saint. "I ll go down and look about. It can t do any 
 harm to ask about honey bees." 
 
 He smiled and passed on to his work. I left 
 them, paddling the cook s johnboat back the mile 
 of canal to the glade of the flooded forest where 
 hung the baron s aerial roost. Where the first 
 overhanging gloom of the cypress shut out the sun, 
 I became entangled in the palmetto scrub and had
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 81 
 
 to detour about the trees so that I came in behind 
 the camp. Here the semi-twilight reigned, not a 
 ray of sun reached to the black water through 
 the tangled tops. Down the watery aisle wandered 
 a breath, cold, evil-odored, malignant, and in it, 
 like streamers of sea plants, the moss plumes sway 
 ed, but without sound, within the deeps. 
 
 The platform camp was untenanted. I could see 
 quite through under the palm thatch, for the baron 
 ial hall had no doors whatever. The baronial mos 
 quito bar streamed fitfully in the breeze, from the 
 four-poster bed. 
 
 "That old monk of a baron is not in it, though," 
 I mused. "Yet where could he go? He couldn t 
 paddle a swamp pirogue it would be absurd. 
 There s not room for him between the trees here 
 about!" 
 
 The huge mud chimney of the shack was direct 
 ly in front of me. I was noticing its clever con 
 struction, the clay, shells and palm withes bound 
 about with bamboo brier; when, on its near side 
 I saw a scrap of paper. It was stuck over a thorn 
 of the brier vine and I could almost make out the 
 writing. Then I did with my glasses. 
 
 It read merely : "We got another one this morn 
 ing."
 
 82 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 A firm upright hand, with nothing of the sloven 
 about it. I was surprised. Then it occured to me 
 to make a closer study. I reached my hand up 
 over the first rough support of the chimney base 
 for that paper, and as I did so there came the 
 crash of a shot so startlingly near that I all but 
 tipped clumsily from the boat. And down past my 
 arm writhed the ugliest black moccasin I had yet 
 seen down beside the gunwale into the water, 
 where he twisted to his death. I was staring and 
 sniffing the powder of that shot, when a voice spoke 
 pleasantly from the latanier jungle behind. 
 
 "I was just passing this way." The murmur was 
 languorous. Then I turned to see our saint of Isle 
 Bonne. She stole across the black water in her 
 light green pirogue twelve feet long it was, and 
 so delicately hewn that it oscillated like a compass 
 needle as she sat it. Across the forethwart lay a 
 very modern automatic rifle. 
 
 "Congo snakes are very bad for Yankee fel-los," 
 she drawled on amiably. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, you saved my life!" 
 
 Her laughter followed but her eyes were on that 
 chimney note. 
 
 Then their covert glance went to me. Yankee 
 fel-los were as amusing as ever, even if they were
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 83 
 
 caught reading other people s correspondence. I 
 somehow grew resentful. Did she shoot at that 
 snake, or my guilty fingers? She had potted that 
 reptile squarely through its ugly head! Now, as 
 easily, she drifted to my clumsy craft, her chin set 
 on one brown hand, watching my discomfiture. 
 
 "Is it" I inquired with dignity at length "a 
 good day for honey bees ?" 
 
 "Some, truly, messieur. Big bees for honey, but 
 little bees for stinging." 
 
 "Young woman," I retorted, "what were you do 
 ing behind me?" 
 
 "Oh, I was watching you, m sieu. All a-time, you 
 come down the canal and turn off in our glade I say : 
 What a-matter with that Yankee fel-lo? " 
 
 I was exasperated; she had seen me squirming 
 about to read that missive. And she had written 
 it, without a doubt; and had left it there, only to re 
 turn when she discovered me. 
 
 "That infernal snake," I murmured: "It quite 
 upset me. Where s the baron ? Do you suppose he 
 has any brandy?" 
 
 "Oh, oui!" With one long swift whirl of the 
 paddle she shot her light craft to the platform; 
 was up on it and in the shack, ere I had managed 
 to teeter to the piling and climb out. She was ex-
 
 84 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 tending a flask to me an exquisite but tarnished 
 thing of silver. I noted a coat-of-arms and a date: 
 1780. She was noticing interestedly my look upon 
 that relic. 
 
 "Thank you," I said dryly, and reached over the 
 platform to fetch up my suit-case. She looked at 
 me still more interestedly. 
 
 "You going back out front, m sieu ?" 
 
 "No. I " and I placidly opened the case and 
 took out my last cigar. "I have come to accept the 
 baron s invitation." 
 
 "Invitation, m sieu ?" 
 
 "You heard him, this morning, most enthusiasti 
 cally insist that I stay a year!" 
 
 "But, m sieu!" 
 
 "I have come to put up with my good friend, the 
 baron." 
 
 "But m sieu! Mon Dieu, Seigneur! M sieu!" 
 
 "Ah, it is good of him." I chuckled and repressed 
 it. The saint was wide-eyed, furious, incredu 
 lous. I had her going! She stepped closer, her 
 clean-cut, ingenuous face changing to utter dis 
 may. I went on felicitously: "Ah, me. There was 
 no room on the dredge. It s beastly at best. No 
 clean water no soap that I could see. And dirt
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 85 
 
 and cinders and noise. I thought then of my good 
 friend, the Baron, and his kind invitation. I said: 
 " Ah, how kind, indeed how princely ! Truly, a 
 nobleman, mademoiselle, offering, as if it were his 
 ancestral castle, this humble abode." I made a ges 
 ture and cracked my knuckles on the rooftree of 
 the abode. "Ah, mademoiselle, I thank you, also 
 for your efforts. You are magnificent doubtless, 
 you will stay and cook for us." 
 
 "Le nom de diable! Cook?" She turned and ran 
 frightenedly to the side of the shack and stared off 
 in the flooded forest. Then she ran back and clap 
 ped her hands. Actually she was pale! I seized 
 those small hands of hers, brown, firm, exquisitely 
 molded and strong as steel. She tried to wring 
 them in my grasp; she had apparently forgotten 
 every word of English. Then she gasped again : 
 
 "Ah, no no no!" 
 
 "Most excellent !" I roared. "Ah, that splendid 
 gentleman, my friend, Baron de Vedrinnes. How 
 fortunate that I can accept." 
 
 "Non non! Diable!" Then she broke away and 
 paced the platform. 
 
 "M sieu the Congo snakes !" 
 
 "Ah, here is mademoiselle to shoot them!"
 
 86 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "The fever." 
 
 "I am proprietor of a famous remedy myself 
 and shall a physician fear his own dose?" 
 
 She looked at me as she might a lunatic. "The 
 old pirate folkses!" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Pirates, messieur!" 
 
 "They are most excellently dead, mademoiselle. 
 I saw the graves of Dominick You and Beluche 
 in your old New Orleans cemetery. And as for 
 Laf itte, himself the devil alone knows what became 
 of him, but he has been gone close to a century." 
 
 Then she suddenly stopped and made a moue. I 
 went on placidly again. "I am not a swamp negro, 
 mademoiselle, to be scared out of Barataria woods 
 by any ghost tales of Lafitte s men. What, by 
 the way, have you done with Hog jaw the one you 
 got this morning?" 
 
 She was absolutely dumfounded. "You ve 
 scared, or coaxed or waylaid every nigger Mr. Will 
 iams has ever been able to bring down in this in 
 fernal place of pirate yarns and buried treasure 
 fakes." 
 
 She looked demurely at me. "You are a wise 
 man, Doctor Rainey." 
 
 "Wait," I boasted, "until you know me. Mean-
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 87 
 
 time, I am here. I haven t a roof over me, nor an 
 ounce of provisions; and Messietir le Baron has 
 courteously offered me his home. See here," I 
 turned on her like an inquisitor of police: "if 
 you offer to obstruct this plan, I ll go tell Mr. Will 
 iams all I do know." 
 
 She gave me a quick appreciation. I had her there. 
 What did I know? She was cudgeling her brains 
 to fathom it; and I cunningly ceased to argue and 
 fell to unpacking my stuff. 
 
 The baron s shack had two bedrooms and a com 
 bined hall and kitchen, and in the best of the crazy 
 chambers I went, tumbling all sorts of litter out on 
 the floor, arranging my toilet articles on the -pine 
 table and hung up my good suit. Then I sat down, 
 pulled out a magazine and proceeded to read. 
 
 Out on the platform the wood saint sat and 
 watched me with long sighs and furtive glances. 
 She was throughly jarred, that I knew. I totally 
 disregarded her. 
 
 Finally she spoke and with a plaintiveness that 
 actually seemed humble. 
 
 "Messieur, did you know that my great-grand- 
 uncle was Armand Drouillot?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And Isle Bonne was his?"
 
 88 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Yes. And a most awful ancestor you had, made 
 moiselle. He was a gambler, a smuggler, a slave- 
 runner, and he lost his life most rightfully at the 
 yard-arm of an English sloop-of-war in 1854." 
 
 "Ah, you know so much!" she sighed. 
 
 "Quite so. And his father was Placide Drouil- 
 lot of whom it is said that even Jean Lafitte con 
 gratulated himself when he was killed at the battle 
 of Chalmette. You are a most awful lot, madem 
 oiselle." 
 
 She sighed again. "Papa Prosper, he no so much. 
 He stay at home on his gallerie and reads his 
 N Awlyins paper if he eve get one." 
 
 "I know. And scolds his tree-frog. He is a 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Me, I don t like gentleman like that, m sieu. 
 I like them like Messieur le Baron. Ah, he jump 
 up so! Swing his sword so or his pipe! Ah, 
 for a lady he do anything!" 
 
 "He can t do much. He s too fat." 
 
 She looked at me injuredly. "He no so fat." 
 
 "Fat and eighty-eight. He ought to know better 
 than stick a rooster feather in his hat, and addle 
 your head with romance. I ll wager now, he s 
 got you hunting buried treasure. Money- not hon 
 ey, you understand?"
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 89 
 
 She made another face at me and then broke to 
 laughter. "Oh, you so a wise man, m sieu ! I like 
 you. I let you go hunt treasure." 
 
 "Thank you. By next autumn Isle Bonne and its 
 treasure and its ghosts, snakes, pirates, red bugs 
 and bull bats will belong to the Prairie Meadows 
 Development Company, and in five years more Yan 
 kee farmers will be raising corn and sorghum inside 
 Mr. Williams protection levee, and where will you 
 be?" 
 
 She thought about it. "I don t know, m sieu. 
 Maybe Antoine come back and be a barbeh some 
 time." 
 
 "Marry him. A good honest barber who doesn t 
 scrape one s face, and will bring home his wages 
 every Saturday night. You marry Antoine, and 
 help him be an excellent barber." 
 
 "Messieur le Baron, he says barbehs no so much. 
 He says dukes are much better for marrying, m sieu. 
 Only I never saw any." 
 
 "And you should not. One nobleman is enough 
 for Isle Bonne. And why does he wear the rooster 
 feather?" 
 
 "Because we couldn t find any peacocks." 
 
 "Oh, lord!" I groaned. "Is that he coming 
 now being towed along by Allesjandro?"
 
 90 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She jumped up with delight. Out of the jungle 
 across the glade came a procession. Allesjandro 
 paddling his pirogue and towing behind in a square- 
 end swamp batteau the vast and rotund form of his 
 Highness. With many jabberings on the pilot s 
 part, and grunts on the baron s when they bumped 
 the cypress spikes, the flotilla reached the platform 
 ladder. They had a deal of trouble getting the 
 baron up. Up above Laure pulled; down below 
 Allesjandro heaved, and in chorus with them both 
 the Baron de Vedrinnes recited prayers of his revil 
 ed Capuchin. 
 
 "Ho, my buttons!" he gasped. "Name of God, I 
 am twisted! Ah! Ah, my foot, Allesjandro - 
 you are breaking it. Ah, together, now up ho!" 
 
 He sat on the platform comically apoplectic, and 
 waved his hand at Laure, not seeing me at all. 
 
 "Ah, princess, there is no more romance left 
 to the world! I have tried fifty years to conserve 
 the last of it but I am getting fat!" 
 
 "Getting fat?" she inquired, innocently. "Mes- 
 sieur le Baron, you have been at Isle Bonne four 
 years now, and always it has required two of us to 
 get you on the platform. But what has that to do 
 with it?" 
 
 "Nothing nothing at all, my dear." He rolled
 
 Laure pulled, Allesjandro heaved
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 91 
 
 to his feet and wiped his face. Allesjandro, with 
 a jabber of his swamp patois, was paddling off 
 again. The master waved to him. "See that the 
 men eat, Allesjandro we had trouble enough to 
 get them. And if they steal a pig, anywhere 
 z oila! You are not to notice such an unfortunate 
 occurrence. A chop, in fact, here at our castle 
 ah, well, mademoiselle, did you happen to bring 
 anything from that old dodderer, your grand 
 father?" 
 
 The saint s face grew stony. "A little duck, 
 m sieu baked as you like it seventeen minutes." 
 
 "A little duck rarely baked, but wholly illegal 
 in April. Well, well with these Yankees around 
 you d best have a care." I 
 
 "M sieu! The doctor!" She whirled him about 
 to me, scarlet-faced. 
 
 The baron gazed; the wrinkled purses under his 
 eyes tightened and then his grand bow, with the 
 wide sweep of the long pipe, followed. 
 
 "My friend, the doctor! Ah, to dinner, indeed, 
 on mademoiselle s exquisite illegal duck. It 
 is magnificant that you came. After all what is a 
 duck between friends?" 
 
 "An excellent dinner, messieur." I out-bowed 
 him grandly. "I am pleased to accept."
 
 92 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "To dinner ah, no to stay the week, a month, 
 a year. Our home is yours everything " he 
 swept an arm to it the thatch, the mud chimney, 
 the strings of garlic and mink skins and dried bait 
 hanging to the roof tree ; "I am honored !" 
 
 Laure was shaking his arm: "Non non!" she 
 was dragging him to his threshold. "Sec see!" 
 she gasped. "The doctor!" 
 
 His eye fell upon my luggage spread about the 
 bed, the open case and my toilet articles upon his 
 little table before the mirror. His interest was pro 
 found. 
 
 "I am happy to accept," I hastened on. "Madem 
 oiselle welcomed me to the best room it is too 
 good of you. My heart" I placed a hand upon it 
 "is full. Time alone will show my gratitude." 
 
 The look the wood saint gave me should have 
 withered one. The baron was bowing gravely. "Ah, 
 my good friend, the doctor!" 
 
 "Ah, Baron!" I all but wept. Laure s eyes had 
 an angry glitter. The baron cocked one of his 
 wide; the other was full of smoke. "There was 
 no room for me at the dredge. They were crowded 
 and then I happened to think of your invitation 
 of this morning." 
 
 "What happy chance! A man of the world of
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 93 
 
 thought, of feeling, of culture and who, I trust, 
 is not afraid of snakes and red bugs." 
 
 "Not in the least." I seated myself calmly in my 
 chair. "Ah, I wonder now, would mademoiselle 
 mind serving her excellent and illegal duck? I 
 feel hungry." 
 
 They both stared, and a trifle bewilderedly. Re 
 bellion was in her eyes. The baron waved his pipe. 
 "My man, Allesjandro well, well, mademoiselle 
 would not mind laying the cloth. And a jug of wine 
 I procure excellent wine of Hungary ordered by 
 way of the Grand Isle mail-boat, messieur." 
 
 He seated himself thoughtfully. Laure went in 
 the main hall and was busied. The way she flirted 
 the baron s gay red tablecloth over the board and 
 rattled the dishes in his screened cupboard was a 
 revelation. She was mad. The baron was jarred. 
 I had put a bad crimp in some scheme or other. 
 The baron was still in his study. Get rid of me 
 he evidently must. He rubbed his hand slowly 
 across the greasy silk sash about his paunch and 
 sighed. The poignant stillness of the deep swamp 
 reigned. The open glade of the flooded forest held 
 spectral depths from the black shadows. Already 
 the immense gloom of night was on us here. The 
 only sunlight lay on the masses of the moss plumes
 
 94 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 opposite us across the water, and in the tawn of 
 that still air it was spun to gold flickings. Some 
 where above me a water-drop fell from the giant cy 
 press and struck the pools at its feet with a tinkle of 
 elfin music. That was all in that fantastic place 
 of silence and of colorful shades it was as unreal 
 as a stage-set; and life was muted that the mum 
 mers might speak. 
 
 The baron heaved about in his vast chair. He 
 was knighthood gone to seed. Anywhere else he 
 would have been ridiculous; here, he seemed quite 
 the proper lord. He seemed to feel the need of 
 explanation to a modern worldling. 
 
 And then he sighed: "Eh, messieur, one must 
 live." 
 
 "What with oysters, crabs and shrimp and fish for 
 the taking anywhere in your bay, a deer to pot in the 
 cheniere, now and then and perchance a neighbor s 
 pig I should think one would live well." 
 j "I did not mean that," he added: "That is 
 nothing." He slapped his girth. "I am through 
 with that my stomach has brought me through fa 
 mously. But ah, messieur, that is not to live! 
 The fine flower " he snapped his fingers to the 
 air. "Exquisite feeling, and the play of grace; a 
 song and the chance of adventure. A service and
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 95 
 
 a love one must have that to live. Look at me 
 it has kept me alive fifteen years beyond my time. 
 The eternal pursuit and the delight of just tipping 
 with your fingers the ineffable mysteries affairs, 
 women, the chance of a sword thrust. Messieur, at 
 twenty- four I was the best swordsman in the Mor 
 avian Cuirassiers. At thirty the best pistol-shot in 
 the Crimean regiments of the Czar; at forty the 
 best gun captain in your Confederate privateering 
 service. I have been shot, hanged, drowned, burn 
 ed, buried, by the official records of half a dozen 
 governments, but now look at me eighty-eight, " 
 he cocked his head so that the rooster feather in his 
 green hat hung over one eye "Sans peur et sans 
 re pro die." 
 
 "Sans a bath, I fancy," I murmured, but he but 
 saw my lips move. Then I shifted squarely about 
 on him: "Come come what are you up to?" 
 
 He shrugged. "I tumbled about the mewling af 
 fairs of five or six of your Latin American repub 
 lics for thirty years. There was not much in it 
 save a woman now and then, who appreciated me 
 who could interpret a bow after the manner, who 
 caught the merest phrase I could offer to whom 
 one could give service, in fact. Now and then one 
 who saw me with her mind s eye in a background
 
 96 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 of old rose and mahogany and not a dirty plunderer 
 from the seven seas. But that is passed at times 
 since then I ve had to wash my own shirt my shirt, 
 messieur not the shirts. But here I have come 
 back to the south coast where " He broke off and 
 looked strangely out of his forest glade to the far 
 gulf reefs: "It is at least sixty years since here 
 about I just escaped being hanged." 
 
 "Still," I pursued, "why here again? What has 
 Barataria to offer your slavers and privateers 
 have been gone three-quarters of a century." 
 
 "Ah, what should it be ! Here, at the end of the 
 rainbow I stumbled upon it." 
 
 "The pot of gold?" 
 
 "Banal ! No never ! What would that be to me 
 at eighty-eight? No, I told you the exquisite 
 thing for a gentleman a service and a love." 
 
 "What? What?" I stared at him. The wood 
 saint within was tinkling the glasses. 
 
 "No no ! For shame, Doctor ! But I came upon 
 them my man, Allesjandro, first apprised me that 
 one of the old Drouillot line held to Isle Bonne. 
 And then I came we camped a week with that in 
 sufferable old bourgeois, Prosper. Ah, there is a 
 come-down, let me tell you, from Armand Drouillot 
 of our old free companions; from Placide, the pir-
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 97 
 
 ate, who fought with Jackson at Chalmette, from 
 Gaspard Bouligny de Drouillot who was granted 
 lands hereabout extending from the river to the sea 
 for the aid he gave Bernardo de Galvez, the fourth 
 Spanish viceroy of Louisiana, in capturing Mobile 
 from the English ah, from that chevalier they 
 have degenerated to Prosper, the crab-fisher! And 
 here I discover the last of the Louisiana line, my 
 lady, cooped up with this doddering grandpere who 
 sits stirring his coffee like a damned cajun while 
 the Yankees plunder her island ! Infamous ! I said 
 intolerable ! To me I, who, with my own eyes, 
 have seen the signature of Charles the Third of 
 Spain to the warrants that gave the lands to the first 
 chevalier! At once I saw what I must do old life 
 and loves and fighting poured back through my 
 veins. We built our camp here on what was left 
 of Cheniere John-the-Fool, and when I found, as 
 the final ignominy of Prosper, that he was trying 
 to marry his grandchild to a barber, I straightway 
 challenged him. But he had nothing save his infer 
 nal crab-hook to fight me with, and besides he look 
 ed in a book from your Washington government, 
 and decided the law would not allow him to fight. 
 Law bah ! All I could do was to sit here and try 
 to charm my marquise away from him and his in-
 
 98 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 fluence. I must build her anew, teach her the French 
 of courts, and not this abominable patois of the 
 south coast. She can speak French or English well 
 enough save when she is excited, as you may have 
 observed, and then she will make you tear your hair. 
 Her mind and her manners ah, I have done mar 
 vels with her in the four years I have cajoled her. 
 Barber be damned I will slit his throat, I will 
 burn old Prosper out and sack his house before 
 she shall wed a barber. A fortune, that is what we 
 need. I would show her courts and promenades 
 she should hear the phrases of gallants, and laugh 
 at the loveliness of silks and laces. She is beauti 
 ful! Ah, if I had my youth again." 
 
 From the palmetto thatch he drew some soiled 
 old wrappings and from these he unrolled a scabbard 
 and then a sword of wondrous art. It was rarely 
 old, and sprung like a line of light in his fingers. 
 He came to sit again and caressed the frayed tas 
 sels thoughtfully. "I ve swum five times from sink 
 ing ships with this, have buried it six to keep it 
 from captors. When I come to die, messieur, I hope 
 to have strength to throw it from me into clean 
 green water of the open sea." 
 
 "Messieur le Baron," I put in, "I took you this 
 morning for an abominable fraud! I apologize."
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 99 
 
 He waved his pipe: "I appreciated you at once, 
 Doctor!" 
 
 "But, ah me! You re fighting a big land com 
 pany as well as a barber to retrieve the fortunes of 
 your lady. That honorable blade of yours, you can 
 not well stick it into an entire board of directors 
 in New York." 
 
 He flourished it grandly. "No matter! It is to 
 live nobly, whatever the end of fortune. The great 
 est fighters are the greatest losers. And as for 
 the barber" he wiped his sword across his rusty 
 trousers "I would not pollute this with his cajun 
 hide; but I will order my men to stick him head 
 first in the mud if he ever comes back. And Laure 
 I have all but shattered his memory in her mind. 
 Ah, Doctor, there is a noble cause here for you to 
 aid!" 
 
 Now, I had lost some of my assurance. You 
 could not help liking the old pig-sticker. Two good 
 legs under him and seven inches off his belly, and 
 I could well imagine him charging Virgil s clam 
 shell dredge like a very Quixote. 
 
 He was eying me shrewdly; he had quite for 
 gotten my position here in his burst of comrade 
 ship. With all his airs, there he was the boy, the 
 hero to himself, simple, eager, a flower, a phrase,
 
 ioo JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 a kindness, a sacrifice, a cause jubilantly he arose 
 to them. 
 
 "I had indeed forgotten," he went on, "y u are 
 a part of this diabolic scheme to dispossess Pros 
 per and his grandchild to dig a ditch through the 
 heart of our wondrous forest. Still, you are a man 
 unlike that fellow of the dredge he is a hard nut 
 to crack." 
 
 "He offered her a compromise four years ago." 
 "Bah ! forty thousand dollars for a principality. 
 I protest no, no never ! I broke that up at once. 
 The Bordeaux heirs got the titles because of some 
 unrecorded transfer sixty years ago the real war 
 rants from Don Galvez were missing. That alone 
 is what beats us" he roared, and waved his to- 
 ledo blade southward at the film of smoke rising 
 from the Texan s dredge. "And that fellow why, 
 my Avild-woods marquise does not so much as notice 
 the mud grubber !" 
 
 "A pity !" I murmured. "It would profit her well." 
 The roaring knight smote his breast. "Bah I! 
 Me ! I will stick him into one of his own mud-holes ! 
 I treat him civilly now, but when the time comes " 
 he broke off and winked at me with vast cunning: 
 "I am not at my last trick, by any means, good 
 Doctor."
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 101 
 
 I smiled guilelessly. He went fuming on with 
 a flourish of his sword now and then, and a pull 
 at his pipe. "Name of God! They are a rabble 
 here shrimp-haulers, crab-fishers catchers of 
 muskrats along with the riffraff from New Orleans 
 levees. And the Yankee newcomers are no better 
 money-chasers and dirt grubbers, without man? 
 ners or understanding. Ah, if I could find one 
 proper lover for my marquise ! She must be polish 
 ed by contact with the bright world. Everything 
 in her is sweetly rough, a fine wild grace of nature, 
 but we must build more in her. I me ! I am the 
 juggler of fortune for her." He rubbed his pink 
 poll under the rooster feathers. "I am the mastei 
 craftsman but she needs a lover a dozen lovers 
 to open the hidden flower." Then he smote his 
 knee : "Ah, I have it. Doctor, you are well preser 
 ved, and have a speech of the world you must 
 play the lover for her. Name of God! you are 
 right to my hand!" 
 
 "The devil!" I roared. "I will not!" 
 
 "It" he went on, amiably, as if it were settled 
 "will be part of her education. Nothing will so 
 complete her as the love of a man of culture and 
 discrimination. After you others, of course. But, 
 Doctor, you are the best I have now, at hand."
 
 102 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "I shall not serve as a stalking horse for any 
 man s passion." 
 
 "You decline to love her?" 
 
 "Yes never!" 
 
 "Then," he went on evenly, "you must expect a 
 challenge from me." 
 
 "Get out! You are absurd. And you are twice 
 my age." 
 
 "Exactly. That gives you a valid excuse for re 
 fusing to fight me. That and the fact you have no 
 weapons or knowledge of them. But it leaves my 
 honor untarnished. I can write of it to the Austrian 
 consul, my good friend. He will see that it gets, 
 by way of gossip, to what is left of my family in 
 Europe. The Prince of Thurn will say: What, 
 that old firebrand, Bernal? Still alive and duel- 
 ing? " 
 
 "Baron, I have seen a great many vain men in my 
 time " 
 
 "But none like me. Ah, that is what keeps the 
 old blood singing through my heart call it what 
 you will ! That, and the face of the beautiful world. 
 And the memory of another face or two! Come, 
 now Doctor here is our great and last adventure. 
 You will assist me petal by petal we shall un 
 fold our flower, we shall watch her face turning
 
 THE HONEY HUNTERS 103 
 
 from the opal mists of childhood to the clear morn 
 ing of a woman and her love !" 
 
 I sat back and watched the old dog in his clear 
 sunset. Then I gasped in some bewilderment: 
 "Well, how do we begin?" 
 
 He was arising and waddling in to his dining 
 hall. "I leave the inner part to your own delicacy. 
 But there are some absolute essentials first. She 
 must have poise and manner I have been diligently 
 correcting much, but in her own home that vulgar 
 Prosper corrupts as fast as I build up. But you 
 now convey in some fit fashion not only that you 
 are enamored, but also that you disapprove of the 
 way she holds her fork, or perhaps pours the tea. 
 A lover can touch her pride where I at times I fear 
 she looks on me as a meddling old tutor." 
 
 We went into the larger room. The wood saint 
 had the small table marvelously appointed, consider 
 ing all. The few pieces of silver shone, there 
 was a globe of her all eternal and omnipresent wild 
 hyacinths in the center of the cloth, and their purple 
 gaud hung aglitter with water-drops. The baron 
 bowed me to a chair before his rice and crabs, let 
 tuce and begung which was raw sea trout eggs, 
 spice and vinegar, a dish that Allesjandro concoct 
 ed as it was done in his own distant Mindanao.
 
 104 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "It is excellent," cried the baron. "Ah, madem 
 oiselle, you have the touch that would give genius 
 to a crust of bread! The air and the features of 
 the nobility " 
 
 The saint had suddenly uplifted her fork and de 
 liberately jabbed it down through the breast of that 
 wholly illegal duck. Slambang defiance there was 
 in the thrust. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Laure," I began. "As to carving, 
 would you allow me " 
 
 She lifted that small duck smartly on her fork 
 and brought it down across the top of my head. 
 The gravy flew in my ears, the dressing down my 
 neck. She jumped up and clapped her hands. 
 
 "That for you! I heard every word of it! I will 
 never love a bald-headed doctor!" 
 
 Then she ran out. I sputtered a way out of the 
 hot gravy. The baron looked on placidly. He 
 reached to replace the duck from my lap. 
 
 "Damnable !" I roared. 
 
 "There was a grace to it," he answered. "It re 
 minded me of the way her rascal of a great-grand- 
 uncle insulted an English captain in the barbor of 
 Toulon in 1841. Allow me to serve the relish, 
 will you not? We picked for you one of the three 
 radishes in our garden."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN 
 
 1 PASSED an uncomfortable night. The bed was 
 lumpy, and the eerie swish of the Spanish moss 
 across the palm roof, the scamper of chameleons and 
 numberless insects through the dry thatch, together 
 with the diabolic cry of the swamp owls did not in 
 vite sleep. We had talked late, the baron relating 
 a variety of astonishing tales. But of the lady of 
 the duck nothing more. He apparently considered 
 us introduced. She had gone home without seeing 
 us again. Allesjandro appeared in the morning 
 and served coffee. I was smoking out on the plat 
 form when a johnboat turned out of the canal an,d 
 came across our watery front yard. Clell was in 
 it, and called to me a good morning that did my 
 heart good. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, it was a short week this first." 
 "Of course. This must be Sunday, I remember. 
 How did it go?" 
 
 He clambered up to me and laughed ruefully. I 
 105
 
 io6 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 caught one of the hands he had tried to conceal. 
 "I ll get broken in pretty soon. The levers and the 
 cable with which we work that crane are a bit rough 
 at first." 
 
 The blood was all but starting through his palms. 
 I nearly cried out my sympathy, and his face set 
 to that hard sullenness that had been on it these 
 weeks. "Now, don t, Doctor Dick. You know the 
 compact. And I I wouldn t have him" he jerk 
 ed his head back to the prairie " know how it 
 hurt. I wiped the blood off inside my shirt when 
 he or Big Jim came near." 
 
 And my boy smiled down at me. Somehow that 
 first day at the man s size job had put a buoyance 
 in him that was good to see. He made a gesture to 
 the north. "Mary, I wonder what she d think?" 
 
 "She d dash about for peroxide, or cold cream 
 in her efficient manner. She d be well she d be 
 beautifully proud." 
 
 His face darkened again. "Well, it s all off. 
 She s free, and so am I. When I work out this 
 slave debt to this fellow, I ll pull off somewhere 
 in the world and have a swing for myself." 
 
 "She loves you, Clell." 
 
 "No." He laughed again. "When a woman won t 
 give up her pretty things and take a chance on facing
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN 107 
 
 the hard grind for a few years with a fellow, she 
 doesn t love him much. Mary s read too much, and 
 thought too much. She s a dear girl and all that 
 and a wonder for her type, but I well, now I m 
 away, I can see everything clearly." 
 
 "But you love her, Clell." 
 
 He twisted as if an old pain had him. "I m com 
 ing through, Doctor Dick. I m through with 
 women. That Williams taught me one thing. I can 
 stand alone and upright and face him. As good a 
 man as he. As strong as he. I hate him and I want 
 him to feel it. He does feel it but his hands are 
 tied. When this debt is paid I ll tell him to his 
 face a good many things; he ll have to be a man 
 to stand for it." He laughed again but bitterly. 
 I tried to gage that monstrosity that had come 
 to the soul of my sunny-hearted lad of a few 
 years ago. Hate? There was no room for it in 
 Clell, but there it stood between the two. 
 
 He suddenly gripped my shoulders with his torn 
 palms. "Old Dick, you ought not to be mixed in it. 
 But God bless you! I might have killed him, if 
 you hadn t. The way Mary looked at me. You 
 know I wasn t dishonest. I lost my sister s little 
 fortune trying to start an electrical business up in 
 the state with Fred Hite. It was all for Mary
 
 io8 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 but she never knew. When I lost and was cornered, 
 Mary didn t seem to sympathize she merely looked 
 at it with her clear business practicality and then 
 came Williams and his money." 
 
 I nodded. "But if you hadn t been so high-head 
 ed. Boy, if you d have let me pay that miserable 
 two thousand back to him, you d have been free." 
 
 "That isn t the point. He smiled and looked 
 at Mary, as much as to say I wasn t equal to paying 
 him. As to your paying, dear Dick, you re not so 
 rich yourself that you can spend money foolishly." 
 
 "I have worked too hard for my money to tolerate 
 any suggestion that I may not spend it foolishly 
 if I choose. You and Mary always scolded me 
 about spending my money." I spoke testily. These 
 young people were always condescending to me 
 there was Laure and her duck. 
 
 Clell was poking about the platform. "How did 
 you get on with the old chap?" 
 
 "Well enough. I have had my coffee and so has 
 he. Then his man Friday went off again, and the 
 baron, having called for a jug of his Hungarian 
 wine, rolled over and went to sleep again. He 
 snored just now." 
 
 "There s something rather funny about all this 
 work. Yesterday, from the dredge I looked off to
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN 109 
 
 the Isle Bonne forest and in an old dead tree, away 
 off, I know I saw a man watching us. And Mangy, 
 the cook, saw him too. He muttered and rolled his 
 eyes, but I noticed he said nothing to Williams or 
 Big Jim. He just nodded to me and muttered: 
 Dem old pirate folkses. And Mangy s so absent- 
 minded that he s an atrocious cook. How did you 
 get on here for dinner?" 
 
 "Duck," I responded, absently smelling of my col 
 lar: "With gravy rather hot." 
 "And the princess was she here?" 
 "She served the duck and then put off." 
 "Gee!" he retorted: "There s some girl! She 
 got me, Doctor Dick big! I m tired of Mary s 
 crowd they re super-civilized. Bright and clever, 
 but they can t love any more. Too cool, and looking 
 for the main chance. I m tired of cleverness. It 
 isn t the fashion to lead simple contented lives any 
 more. If a man said he was really contented and 
 happy, people d say he was a quitter. The women 
 of Mary s crowd look on their husbands as sort 
 of good old work-dogs that they re fond of, after 
 a fashion as they would be of any useful animal 
 that didn t take up too much of their time. They 
 give him sort of a companionship that s the essence 
 of their modernity. And I m glad I see it now
 
 no JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 that I turned back. I want something primal where 
 women have passion and the flash of savagery, and 
 give all recklessly and demand all." 
 
 "The duck season," I put in irrelevantly, "is clos 
 ed by law now. I wish there was a closed season on 
 women women with a flash of savagery. Hear the 
 baron snore it s big and primal." 
 
 "There you go, Doctor Dick, funning away about 
 real things as if they didn t matter. If Williams 
 was blotted out, I d enjoy all this." And he clench 
 ed those bruised hands of his and winced. 
 
 I faced about on him squarely. "See here, don t 
 go to talking all this fantastic idealism to the baron. 
 He ll have you for Number Two !" 
 
 "What on earth are you talking about?" 
 
 "Never mind. As for women, much as I love 
 Mary, I can not quite reconcile myself to them. The 
 notion that they have anything to do with happi 
 ness is absurd. Happiness is solely a thing of 
 one s soul. Women are never fair to their enemies 
 nor absolutely generous to their friends they play 
 with an ace up their sleeve. They marry for a 
 variety of reasons of which love is the fifth or 
 sixth." 
 
 He denounced me with the inevitable intolerance 
 of the optimist. He had not yet had his duck. I
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN in 
 
 saw between Clell, in his new if confused ardor, 
 and the baron with his musty chivalry, a bachelor 
 would have a hard time to keep his pipe sweet. 
 And that Creole girl would come back I hoped it 
 would not be a tureen of soup the next time. 
 
 We smoked and idled lazily. The sun swung 
 about the shadows of the baron s pool. The beauty 
 of that morning I can not tell you. The arching and 
 tenebrous silence, the warm sweet twilight, a tawny 
 velvet which the sun could not quite dispel. 
 
 The noon was near, and its somnolence was on 
 us, when I heard a grating under the platform. 
 Then above it arose Laure s head. Her small and 
 exquisite ear was so close I might have touched it, 
 and her dark eyes widened. She evidently was 
 startled to see me, thinking I must have departed 
 in a huff. As she climbed up she nodded tartly. 
 Then at sight of Clell, her sparkle came. She held 
 both hands to him. 
 
 "Ah, m sieu! So, already, you come to see me. 
 It is good you have not forgotten." 
 
 "I couldn t forget the honey bees and you. I 
 was intending to try to get through the swamp this 
 afternoon to call at Papa Prosper s." 
 
 She felt real alarm. "Don t you eve try that. A 
 Yankee fel-lo! The deep swamp, m sieu" she
 
 ii2 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 looked about "this is nothing to it! This little 
 cheniere on this side Isle Bonne they call John- 
 the-Fool." 
 
 "Excellently named," I murmured, and she dis 
 regarded me. 
 
 "Don t you eve go no farther than John-tile 
 Fool. You can always see me here. Always I come 
 to see if Allesjandro feed the baron as he should. 
 And talk. At Papa Prosper s ah, well ! The talk 
 is mostly crabs and seed catalogue. Here we talk 
 about dukes." 
 
 "Dukes and ducks," I murmured again, and she 
 shrugged. I refused to be ignored, even if these 
 two young persons already had no use for anything 
 but each other. 
 
 Then I heard the baron bawling from his bed. 
 Within one saw the bar over his blankets convul 
 sing. Then the hank of his pipe came out. From 
 under the bunk crawled the spike-tailed pup. The 
 upheaval of the clothing continued; the baron s 
 foot stuck out. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, is that you? Ah, I heard that 
 voice! I see the sun mademoiselle, will you put 
 the garden out in its sunshine?" 
 
 "Oh, oui I" She broke away from Clell. And 
 then, about the corner of the camp she reappeared
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN 113 
 
 trundling a wheelbarrow. On it was a sort of 
 box. The teetering load was almost too much, and 
 Clell hastened. 
 
 "Merci!" she said, with exasperating prettiness, 
 and left it to him. But from the baron s bar 
 came a volley of objurgation : 
 
 "Le nom de Dieu! Marquise, the Yankee will 
 spill it! Ah, our garden! To the rescue, madem 
 oiselle! From his clumsy hands rescue!" 
 
 Out he rolled in his red robe-de-nuit. His shock 
 of white hair stood every way, his porpoise body 
 jellied as he strode. 
 
 Clell was parading the wheelbarrow lucklessly 
 here and there. 
 
 "Here, messieur! In the sunshine here!" She 
 pointed to the only bar of the sunlight that fell 
 through John-the-Fool s high-arching canopy. Clell 
 chased it wildly and engineered the garden there. 
 
 The baron was following. "Ah, young man, 
 careful !" He stopped, wheezing over the barrow. In 
 the slab box, perhaps three feet by three, filled with 
 rich mold was a valiant array of lettuce, onions, 
 radishes and a lone cucumber vine. Bravely they 
 looked up to the sunshine. Proudly down gazed 
 the baron. He patted the lustiest radish of the 
 three.
 
 114 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Pardon, messieur, but I could not trust you 
 you can not realize that this is the only sweet earth 
 on this side the swamp. At what labor we brought 
 it through from Isle Bonne! And the sun? le 
 diable! Such a morsel as we get here. All the 
 time one must chase it after two o clock there is 
 none whatever!" 
 
 "It will have most two hours more, Messieur le 
 Baron. Ah, the cucumber one can hear it cry 
 with joy !" Laure fondled it lovingly. Clell watch 
 ed that small hand. What affection to place on a cu 
 cumber ! 
 
 The baron went back to his dressing. He put 
 on his green cap of the feather and lighted his pipe 
 before he drew the curtains. Then I heard his 
 phonograph rustily clawing out a duo of Rigoletto, 
 and his rattly old voice following, as he searched for 
 his socks. 
 
 Laure and Clell were inspecting the garden. "You 
 are sitting exact in our best sunshine, Doctor!" 
 she exclaimed, and that was the first recognition 
 of me. I moved over humbly. "Now move our 
 garden into its sunshine, M sieu Redfield. The little 
 sweet earth! It is a treasure. We must watch 
 that dog he all a-time steals the sunshine from our 
 garden."
 
 THE WAY TO BEGIN 115 
 
 The reproved pup gazed from afar. Certainly 
 he would like to lie in that sunshine. We had 
 both lost the light of her pleasure. 
 
 Then we were asked in to breakfast. Alles- 
 jandro was still gone mysteriously, but the baron ex 
 plained, although we had had our early coffee, more 
 coffee would do excellently for dejeuner. 
 
 Clell glanced up at the baronial rafters. Brown 
 they were, and hung with gay peppers, garlic beads, 
 mink pelts, bay leaves, a rusty helmet, crab bait 
 of dried beef sinew, and plunder of all sort. Then 
 his eye came down again to the baron s battered 
 but exquisite coffee urn. Laure was pouring. 
 
 "By jove!" he cried. "You can t tell how fine 
 this is, mademoiselle, and how you are doing it!" 
 
 "Could not I carve a duck?" she inquired: "or 
 hold my fork so correctly, messieur?" 
 
 "The perfection of all perfection s as it is!" he 
 cried. 
 
 "That it the way to begin," she observed, and 
 looked at me and then the baron. The baron look 
 ed at me with vast new doubt. I had a curious 
 resentment at all this fine youth of the two of them. 
 They paid no attention to us. None whatever. The 
 baron tried to interpose some of his persiflage, and 
 she inquired of Clell did he not love her island
 
 n6 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 more and more? Did he not despise dirty dredges 
 that turned up the mud? Mon Dieu! What infamy! 
 No gentleman would do it. I grew jealous. T was 
 glad when there came an apoplectic gasp from the 
 baron. He pointed out the door speechlessly. 
 
 Laure shrieked. We all started to our feet. The 
 luckless pup had upset the garden out of its sun 
 shine. The wood saint was in tears.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 
 
 THE end of the following week I made the 
 second of the reports to Mary which I had 
 promised. I had the entire morning to myself, for 
 Baron de Vedrinnes and his man Friday had gone 
 into the deep swamp, and Laure had not been near 
 us for two days. So I put things with some delib 
 eration, and, I fear, asperity. The week had not 
 made me more enamored of John-the-Fool. 
 
 "That, my dear," I wrote her, "is the name of the 
 place, apparently. Although there is no longer any 
 place. I am roosting between three trees and a lot 
 of poles thrust into the water on which is the castle 
 it seems that what was left of Cheniere John-the 
 Fool after the last gulf hurricane in ninety-three, 
 is merely Congo snakes and mosquitoes and incom 
 parable sunsets, that is, what one can see of the sun 
 for the forest. I have a job now. It is to chase 
 the sun with our garden which has been rehabilitat 
 ed. The little radish is doing well now, but the 
 cucumber is ailing. I mentioned Baron John Bernal 
 de Vedrinnes; he is much worried about the cu 
 cumber which he had planned to have in a salad on 
 
 117
 
 n8 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 July fourteenth, when he and Mademoiselle Drouil- 
 lot will celebrate the fall of the Bastile. He does 
 not approve of the fall but bows to her Republican 
 instincts. I mentioned mademoiselle, did I not? 
 She is the one who hit me with the duck. 
 
 "You ask me of Clell. My dear, things go no 
 better with the two. I haven t much heart to stay 
 about the dredge it is an infernal affair, anyway, 
 of heat and noise and dirt. But all day and half 
 the night Virgil smashes away on his canal the ma 
 chine is far off now through the dead trees and into 
 the flottant as they call the floating land. He has 
 only got half enough men, and they are all dog- 
 tired and grim and silent at night when I paddle 
 to the bunk-house and try to cheer things along. 
 And the disheartening situation between Clell and 
 Virgil does not change. They watch each other 
 across a gulf of hate; and the fact that Clell has 
 never whimpered when he worked Virgil s levers 
 with his hands dripping blood only made Williams 
 smile. He was expecting the boy to break, and 
 Clell has met every demand on him. He is just a 
 trifle insolent, and I fear oh, my dear! I am 
 afraid for them! The only time Clell is himself is 
 when he comes over here to this ridiculous board 
 ing-house of mine then you ought to see him 
 change. That Creole girl of Isle Bonne interests 
 him he s like the old Clell of five years ago when 
 he s with us. She comes of a scandalous line of 
 pirates and privateers, and now and then it shows 
 plain enough. Big Jim, the day engineman, says 
 she would not hestitate to dynamite the dredge to 
 ruin Mr. Williams, if they ever gave her the chance. 
 She says so herself. I can t understand Virgil say 
 ing once he loved her. I told Clell of it, and the
 
 THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 119 
 
 way he smiled was not good. The two of them 
 seem to run to a clash everywhere. It is a sad 
 mess. Virgil s men have not been paid for weeks, 
 and only loyalty to him holds them here he s about 
 given up the hope of aid from the company to 
 finish his ditch and if anything happens now he s 
 wiped out. And the baron chuckles, and Laure 
 shrugs and smiles. I do believe she is trying to win 
 Clell away from Virgil s job that s why she co 
 quets with him so outrageously. She treats me 
 vilely. 
 
 "Oh, Mary, I wish this abominable thing had 
 never happened! 
 
 "Old Dick still loves you." 
 
 Our mail goes out by means of a pirogue runner, 
 usually, to catch the Barataria mail-boat which runs 
 down to the south coast every week, so getting 
 a letter from Isle Bonne to New York is less cer 
 tain in time than getting one to St. Petersburg. 
 But Mary wrote me at once. 
 
 Very brief it was; I recall that she concluded with 
 a curious loneliness for one of her busy and ever 
 oncoming life. 
 
 But she began : 
 
 "What in the world do you mean about the little 
 radish? I think that sun has affected you 
 What sort of an appearing person is this Madem 
 oiselle Laure Drouillot? You have spoken twice 
 of her very mysteriously. I m glad to hear Clell is
 
 120 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 making good. Of course I don t expect him to write 
 to me the breach between us was too clear and 
 impassable, wasn t it, dear Dick? Only he might 
 
 or Virgil might Somehow, my heart is with 
 
 the three of you down in that dreadful place. Some 
 how, life and work seem meaningless of late I 
 keep thinking of the three of you and your madness. 
 Dear Dick, how good it was of you to go. 
 
 "Mary. 
 
 "P. S. Tell me more about this island girl." 
 
 I intended to write back at once; indeed, I was 
 at it a rare morning when the sweet damp breath 
 of the flooded forest was pouring out to meet the 
 sun-margin of our glade, when mademoiselle her 
 self came out of the watery isle in her green canoe. 
 We had not had much to do with each other of 
 late; I suppose she had been hunting her honey 
 bees, and yet why should one take axes and block 
 pulleys to hunt honey as twice this week from the 
 baron s platform I had seen Allesjandro do? 
 
 She came up and finding no one except myself, 
 sat opposite in the dining hall and looked at my 
 writing portfolio. I glanced up to see her chin in 
 her hand upon the table, her dark eyes thoughtful. 
 
 "M sieu, do you consider it essential to be my 
 enemy ?" 
 
 "You threw at me, a duck "
 
 THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 121 
 
 "Ah, will you never forget ? Besides, it was such 
 a little one!" 
 
 "Ah, well," I sighed. "It landed close to my 
 heart!" 
 
 She looked at me suspiciously, but with some ap 
 proval. I don t know why I said it, but now I saw 
 it was the stuff to use. She smiled with long 
 growing pleasure. 
 
 "One s heart, m sieu that gives one such a trou 
 ble. My heart is like my beautiful isle which is 
 being cut across this way and that, and claimed and 
 stormed over by so many feelings. The baron 
 say it is proper for my education that all the ones 
 of you here bother me so for love, but I do not 
 want. Ah, now, what do so many matter?" 
 
 "Do not flatter yourself. They are all too busy 
 except me." 
 
 She broke to enrapturing laughter. "The baron 
 say: Mademoiselle, I have made an agreement 
 with the doctor-gentleman he has contracted to 
 love you ardently, so that when you come to your 
 fortune and I take you abroad, you shall know how 
 men speak it in the great world. 
 
 "He is a fool, mademoiselle. I m dashed if I 
 will. And you will never come to a fortune. You 
 and Papa Prosper are beggars, to put it plainly.
 
 122 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 As for the baron, he is the prince of illusions, but 
 you must not let him drag you into them. Your case 
 comes up in the Court of Appeals, I understand, next 
 month. It is practically lost now. Soon as it is de 
 cided the company will turn loose five hundred men 
 and dozens of machines on the reclamation ditches 
 and the days of your old pirate line in Barataria 
 are done." 
 
 She laughed again joyously. "Messieur le Baron 
 he say " 
 
 "I don t care what the baron says. He ll have 
 his finish when Virgil Williams gets control of Isle 
 Bonne. He s insulted Williams too many times with 
 his asinine theories of chivalry. Why should Will 
 iams bother about you, mademoiselle? This affair 
 is very strictly business, as you will discover." 
 
 "Ah, business !" She clasped her hands pensively. 
 "Messieur le Baron say business is a pig. M sieu 
 Williams, never can he love me in the world, say 
 Messieur le Baron, and be so for business." 
 
 "Get out!" I roared. "Le nom de Dieu! Dldble! 
 Confound you! That ass of a baron is maddening. 
 He is making you think we all must be in love with 
 you. He is a crazy sentimentalist he is a " 
 
 "Ah, well ! He speaks so prettily to me ! What, 
 then, can a woman care, if he be eighty-eight and
 
 123 
 
 oh, so fat! and with his rooster feather and all! 
 I laugh, I blush some-a-time; I scold, I do not 
 believe, and run away but I look back, a little peek- 
 look to see and listen what Messieur le Baron say 
 next to please a lady." 
 
 "Laure," I said suddenly and soberly: "where 
 did you get your education?" 
 
 "Ah, m sieu, I have little education. Sometimes 
 I know just a little when I think very hard hold 
 my head so this a-way. I went five years to con 
 vent in N Awlyins. A little piano and some French 
 of Paris, and some needle work, and all about 
 some queens and kings of La Belle France! Then 
 Papa Prosper, he says : Come home to Isle Bonne, 
 mademoiselle. Men are beginning to fly like ducks 
 and talk across the oceans. Le nom de Dieu! The 
 world, he ees too wise fo you, Laure you come 
 back to Isle Bonne. So, I come back to my island 
 and we very happy until M sieu Williams come to 
 destroy our forests and make smoke Bom such 
 noise and smoke!" 
 
 "Is that all, mademoiselle, that Mr. Williams 
 did?" 
 
 "Oh, he sit and stare at me and talk frogs with 
 Papa Prosper!" 
 
 "Mademoiselle," I said severely, looking at that
 
 124 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 long slow smile of hers, "five years in the world 
 even a convent were quite enough for you. You 
 know too much now. The safest thing when about 
 you is to talk frogs. Mr. Williams saw that he 
 won t pay any attention to you till he gets his canal 
 built. Then, I fancy, he ll chuck you and Papa 
 Prosper off this island. And the baron " 
 
 "Ah, the baron! He say, with his sword, he will 
 protect me !" 
 
 "Williams will pull his castle down under him." 
 "Ah, then, M sieu Clell will protect me !" 
 "He," I retorted grimly, "works for Williams 
 and anyhow, you can t work him!" 
 
 "Ah, then dear Doctor, you will protect me !" 
 I looked at her. There were tears in her eyes. 
 I had never seen that before. Tears on her long 
 lashes all aglitter ; and her child s face was blurring. 
 She covered it. I felt like a pile-driver. Ah, if 
 one can be happy on one s island, it is a shame to 
 drive sticks in it or dig it up! 
 
 "You will help me, m sieu ! I have nobody. Papa 
 Prosper he no care for any one except his seed cat 
 alogue and his coffee. Messieur le Baron, when he 
 die, I can t go anywhere to talk. There will be 
 no more dukes and wars and castles like in books; 
 but just mostly crabs and Antoine gone off to be 
 abarbeh!"
 
 THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 125 
 
 "Let s not worry yet. My dear young woman, 
 I m mighty sorry. I well, if I owned this con 
 founded land company, I d break it. I well, now 
 don t weep. I won t put up with it I I " Now 
 I simply had to take her hands across that table. If 
 I hadn t she d have wept more. I had to and she 
 lifted one shoulder to wipe her eyes across her 
 sleeve. I had to hold her shoulder then, and mur 
 mur that she must not cry any more. I had to 
 murmur other things; actually, I had not been in 
 such a state for twenty years! I recalled having 
 had my arm about other girls in other years; I 
 remember distinctly how soft and squirmy they 
 used to feel. But Laure was different somehow. 
 I felt strangely content, deliciously at home; 
 she looked up with her eyes half closed, her 
 lithe young form tensed against me, and from her 
 hair was disengaged a faint adorable perfume 
 but it may have been some stuff the barber sent her. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," I whispered. "What does it mat 
 ter? Suppose that I even a crabbed bachelor- 
 doctor, such as I suppose he would protect you to 
 the end? Suppose he he " 
 
 "Loved me?" she murmured back, and her eyes 
 grew orient-long in the shadows of the cypress 
 arches, where the sweet damp of her flooded isle 
 breathed out to us.
 
 126 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Crazy about you!" I whispered back. "Oh, 
 the fool I am ! What the devil am I at ?" 
 
 "You are stroking my cheek, dear Doctor!" 
 
 "What am I doing?" 
 
 "You are kissing me, dear Doctor!" 
 
 I groaned. I kissed her again, and groaned again 
 at the delight of it. She was no more like the 
 last woman I kissed twenty years ago than hair tonic 
 is like the odor of the ferns on Isle Bonne ridges. 
 
 "I ve fallen completely. I I oh, Laure, what 
 do you mean by trapping me so! I I and you 
 it s madness !" 
 
 "Ah, such madness! Such dear, dear madness! 
 And you tried to detest me and I you! The 
 wretched duck I hurled at you, mon cher! You will 
 be my knight, too, won t you like the baron!" 
 
 "Worse!" I cried. "Or better whichever it is!" 
 
 "Ah, now, you will help me find my fortune!" 
 
 "Exactly! Where is it?" 
 
 "I don t know. Messieur le Baron is much dis 
 turbed. He has had the negroes dig everywhere. 
 Armand s ship went down in Bayou John-the-Fool 
 ah, but where ?" 
 
 "Ha!" I shouted. "That s it where?" 
 
 "You will assist us?" 
 
 "I will do anything, my darling, except dig. I
 
 THE EDUCATION OF LAURE 127 
 
 am no good in the mud. I will scout or stand guard 
 with Messieur le Baron s sword. I ah, I love 
 you!" 
 
 With what rapture her eyes shone ! She ran back 
 laughingly across the baron s dining hall and kissed 
 me. "Ah, mon Dieu! who would have thought 
 such a miracle! My treasure of a doctor!" 
 
 There was a scraping at the platform. Laure re 
 leased me and stole out, pushing up her rumpled hair 
 as she went. I heard a wheezy inquiry from Mess 
 ieur le Baron. Then her soft answer. How that 
 accent melted with the breeze over her island marsh, 
 how adorable her eagerness to the baron ! I slipped 
 to my bedroom and brushed my hair palpitatingly. 
 Ah, what a secret we had now, she and I? who 
 would suppose that she would be at once enamored 
 of her bald-headed doctor! 
 
 Then through the thin walls of the shack I heard 
 Laure breathing hard as she assisted the apoplectic 
 knight over the platform s edge. 
 
 "Messieur le Baron, I have almost got another 
 one a\vay from Messieur Williams dredge com 
 pany. Ah, how well he does it, just as you said, dear 
 Baron! A man of feeling and culture helps a great 
 deal with my education for dukes, just as you said, 
 dear Baron."
 
 128 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Messieur le Baron gurgled something I could not 
 make out but it had to do with his buttons and the 
 height of the platform. Then he sat up and went on : 
 "Supurb, mademoiselle! We shall keep them all 
 guessing. And I have a great plan we shall invite 
 them all to Papa Prosper s for a ball the fiddler 
 has arrived at Cheniere Couquille, and we can have 
 a ball." 
 
 "A pawty! Then I can wear my gown again. 
 Messieur Williams shall see " 
 
 "I was not thinking of the mud grubber only to 
 discomfit him!" 
 
 "Ah, me !" she sighed, "all-a-time everybody help 
 at my education except him!" 
 
 I combed the rest of my hair while their voices 
 became more cautiously subdued. Then I sat down 
 and added a postscript to Mary s letter : 
 
 "She has got another one. I am it. After me it 
 will be Big Jim, and then Mangy, the cook. That 
 will be Virgil s finish. Ah, my dear and self-suffi 
 cient Mary, I am a fool. But you ought to see her 
 besides, there is nothing to do at John-the-Fool 
 except educate Laure, and I was as lonesome as the 
 little radish." 
 
 "Your disconsolate Dick."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 
 
 THE spring drouth was on the swamp this 
 month. The trembling prairie, from the mir 
 rored pools of our cypress island to the far shin 
 ing reefs of the gulf was a myriad-voiced murmur 
 when the dry cane rustled in the wind. Under the 
 yellow stalks the green young shoots grew from the 
 water. Once far off in the blue east a great column 
 of dun smoke hung for days over the Mississippi 
 passes, rising out of the infinite and unseen marshes 
 so that it seemed as if the sea itself was burning. All 
 night long the shadows of the baron s glade were 
 faint amber with a tint of red, and where the smoke 
 drifted into our cypress aisles it appeared impris 
 oned and never to rise again in the windless depths. 
 I had made my first venture into the deep swamp. 
 Laure took me in her green canoe. It required a 
 deal of faith to step down in that oscillating needle 
 of wood; the slightest idea on the wrong side of 
 one s head would have upset its equilibrium. She 
 paddled into pathless runs of pools of the forest and 
 
 129
 
 130 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 then let us drift while I stared into that gray 
 changeless silence. Black water below and the 
 straight-running and cathedral-like spaces of the 
 hanging moss above, with here and there a faint 
 high fleck of the sky beyond the tallest cypress tops. 
 The deep swamp of Isle Bonne was appalling; I saw 
 Laure smiling at the blankness of my look when I 
 had drunk it all in. 
 
 "Are you coming, m sieu," she said airily, "to 
 my pawty ?" 
 
 "Party?" I cried incredulously. "Where on 
 earth?" 
 
 She pointed a dripping blade into the sunless 
 depths. "At Papa Prosper s. They all coming 
 from Africa, and Free Camp, and Bassa Bassa and 
 Old Cheniere and John-the-Fool." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Oh, everybody. The music was broke at the last 
 ball at La Cheniere, but now Sim, he fixed it. He 
 put two nails in it. Dear Doctor, the baron is not 
 so growly at all you Yankees as formerly. He says 
 let us have a pawty, and serve sherbet anisette and 
 gumbo file. It will be part of my education, says 
 Messieur le Baron, although there will, of course, be 
 no dukes or anything like that, says Messieur le 
 Baron."
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 131 
 
 "Very well," I answered, "we ll go to your pawty. 
 You know I told you distinctly that I loved you. 
 Now is Messieur le Baron satisfied ?" 
 
 She broke to soft laughter. I hated to be a joke 
 even for Laure. I went on irascibly : "Or is it that 
 you merely got another one ?" 
 
 She looked wide-eyed and murmured: "Oh, you 
 a very wise man, dear Doctor. But I love you a lit 
 tle bit. Oh, just a little bit, but then a good deal for 
 such a little bit. You can dance at my pawty." 
 
 I went down to the dredge at dusk when the lean- 
 faced and weary crew was coming off. It was a 
 warm night, the air coming from the black box 
 of a machine heavy with oil smells and burned 
 waste. Clell came down from the crane where he 
 had doggedly mastered the shovel through the weeks. 
 I got a curious new impression of him, his easy 
 slouch and ease and assertion. Silently they had 
 watched him, Virgil and the big engineer, for the 
 break that never came. But the atmosphere of con 
 straint on the dredge was intolerable to me. They 
 had not bridged the gulf; except curt orders no 
 word had passed between them. Virgil was harassed 
 by other things as well. The men he had hoped for 
 from the city for his night shift had not come. He 
 had gone to the city once to plead for credit on
 
 132 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 supplies; and had come back grimly facing defeat. 
 But the dredge fought on with the four of them 
 alone. When gears broke, Big Jim and Williams 
 hammered out the repairs in the sooty forge-room, 
 and again the monster ground its way seaward. 
 Once a tow-steamer brought a barge of crude oil and 
 was compelled to lay out in the lake for a week un 
 til Virgil arranged payment for the cargo. I don t 
 know how it was done. He brought down black 
 men for his fire-room and the dynamite crew that 
 went ahead in the swamp to blow out the remnants 
 of the sunken primeval forest which lay in his right- 
 of-way and saw them desert or rebel and disap 
 pear, one after another. And he patiently rear 
 ranged his working force and went ahead. The 
 dredge had not stopped. Of that he was sure. 
 Somehow in that his honor lay. 
 
 "June first," he was murmuring now to me, as he 
 stayed a moment, "we ll be through the last of the 
 dead timbeh. Then the survey runs straight 
 through the flottant I got a two-yard clam for the 
 soft stuff and we ll jam her right through to salt 
 water. I m going to win, Doctor Dick. I see it now 
 but last week! Well, I ain t sayin I d quit. I 
 just didn t see how I d raise nine hundred dollars
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 133 
 
 for that crude oil that s all. But she s here, and 
 Big Jim s feedin her in. I feel like celebratin ." 
 
 "Come to the pawty," I said. "Saturday night. 
 You re all invited." 
 
 He motioned to the island. "That bunch ?" Then 
 the serene victoriousness came into his smile : "Wait 
 till I get the ditch in then I ll ask em to mine." 
 
 "It ll be a fine pawty," I retorted. "And you can t 
 refuse the lady. You ll go, won t you, Clell?" 
 
 "Sure thing. A party at Papa Prosper s will be 
 something." 
 
 Big Jim was not so sure. The dredge would lay 
 up Saturday night for the usual overhauling and in 
 spection. He grinned and his worn blue eyes twin 
 kled. "Maybe it would be a good thing to turn 
 loose I m getting mighty restive to get out up front 
 for a bat along the levee. Not that there s much ex 
 citement at these cheniere balls. A half-barrel of 
 red wine, and Sim at his accordion. And it ll run 
 all night and the next afternoon and Sunday night, 
 and any fellow who stays in the game with the girls 
 from the chenieres won t be much good for a week 
 after." 
 
 Allesjandro came to the dredge the next day with 
 many amiable gesticulations to extend a formal in-
 
 134 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 vitation. Ah, the ball it would be ! Sim would be 
 there with his accordion of course. "And, m sieu, 
 mebbe we catch a leetle riddle from Manila Village. 
 Yas, it sho fine to have a fiddle with dat accordion. 
 You-all t ink you be there ?" 
 
 There was real wistfulness in his voice. He would 
 have the Good Child at the end of the canal to take 
 us around the lake to Isle Bonne s front door. There 
 would be a famous breeze surely this time of year; 
 and there was Mr. Williams launch, if not so. Ah, 
 this time surely, messieur, every one would lay 
 aside these bickerings and come to the ball. What 
 was all this squabble in the courts certainly Papa 
 Prosper did not care, and as for the baron well, 
 Allesjandro waved his hand with superb confidence : 
 The Baron John Bernal de Vedrinnes, one time of 
 Austria and the Louisiana Lottery Company that 
 magnificent gentleman, who could doubt the man 
 ner in which he would entertain his enemies? 
 
 "Tell the old tom-cat," murmured Virgil, "that 
 the mob will be there. Only clothes clothes is some 
 scarce fo a pawty. We ought to have somebody 
 along with this bunch to be pretty-man f o a pawty." 
 His eyes wandered ever so lightly over Clell then 
 to me. "Big Jim and me ain t in it much. Once,
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 135 
 
 out in that western country, I knew a cook whose 
 ambition in life it was to get drunk in a dress suit. 
 Yes, seh that s all he talked about was gettin 
 soused in evenin clothes. He was with our outfit 
 two years, and all the time he rustled chuck he told 
 of how he was savin his money for the big splash 
 in San Antonio. Well, one time he blew on us and 
 hit San Antone with the best goods any tailor in 
 Texas ever turned out. Yes, seh, that cook su tiny 
 had em. Then he got piped and went to the best 
 hotel in the town after the theater, when it was 
 livenin up some. And while he stood there lookin 
 fo a table in all them clothes, some fel-lo sittin 
 under a little old palm tree in that dinin -room mo 
 tions him over and says : Waiter, bring me another 
 demi-tassay. 
 
 "That cook sho came right back to the Brazos 
 and blew his head off in my bunk-house." 
 
 The Texan thought of his cook ruefully a moment 
 while we laughed and then his dry comment came. 
 "Clothes is all right. But it all comes down to a 
 man bein placed right in his heart. Yes, seh 
 there s some sense of ordeh in the world. That 
 cook was a right fine cook, but he showed up like a 
 sifted son-of-a-gun in evenin clothes. Me I m all
 
 136 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 right smashin this mud-scow through and man- 
 handlin niggers, but I well, I got some sense of 
 ordeh! So I stay out of some things." 
 
 "But you ll come?" I said. "It won t look right 
 for all the boys to go to the ball, and the boss stay 
 away. You can t afford to have the cajuns think 
 you re sore on them." 
 
 "You re pretty right, Doctor Dick. Only" His 
 eye wandered over his loved black monster squatting 
 in the sere rozo cane and ahead of it the infinity of 
 the man s size job "Well, Mangy and the new 
 nigger can hold down the dredge Saturday night. 
 Some one s got to stay." 
 
 So Allesjandro carried back a message of felici 
 tations and one could trust Allesjandro to paint 
 them to his master all the Yankees would come to 
 the ball. When I paddled back down the canal that 
 night I caught the red ember of the baron s pipe 
 waving through the twilight. The Good Child lay 
 in the little cove, and her skipper was on the plat 
 form. Also two tall, lazy swamp blacks uprose, and 
 one of them laid hasty hold of the gun beside him 
 at sight of me. The old man made a quick and im 
 perious gesture of dissent. Then he pounded his 
 usual evening greeting to me on the floor. I was 
 late for the supper that his man had just served but
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 137 
 
 there was something left the broiled crabs and rice 
 and ship bread and coffee. He arose and apologized 
 fervently and like stealthy shadows the furtive 
 blacks slipped away in the flooded forest. But I had 
 marked them ; and the baron saw it. One was Hog- 
 jaw, the fellow who had last deserted Williams 
 crew; and the other I guessed was the outlaw, 
 Crump, of whom the dredgemen had told me a 
 renegade who had taken to the deep swamp after a 
 killing in a levee camp on the river, and who was 
 a "bad nigger," generally. 
 
 My eye went after the two pirogue runners; it 
 was the first time we had connected the islanders 
 directly with the swamp blacks in any manner. It 
 confirmed Virgil s theory of the disappearance of 
 his crew; they were enticed away or waylaid if they 
 would not desert. Virgil and Big Jim had sent 
 word long ago to Crump that they would kill him 
 on sight; and the renegade had sent back his inso 
 lent message : "Come in and take me." 
 
 The baron had settled back in his chair. "Alles- 
 jandro is hiring the fellows to tong his oysters in 
 the lower bay, my friend," he told me casually, with 
 a wave to the swampers. 
 
 "Indeed ? I thought it hardly the time of year for 
 that."
 
 138 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Ah, that is so, is it not? Messieur, what a 
 scoundrel of a world where nothing ever appears as 
 it should !" His bright eye sought me out under its 
 shaggy brow : "My dear Doctor, would you intrude 
 a mere oyster to confuse a gentleman such as I?" 
 
 "I would merely pick the pearl of truth from your 
 shell." 
 
 His vast gentle laughter came. He tapped his 
 knee with the pipe. 
 
 "Allesjandro, a glass of the yellow wine for the 
 doctor. He is worth it, he amuses me. He is a true 
 friend at that; I told my little marquise this morn 
 ing that she was honored twice over first, that 
 Messieur le Doctor told her that he loved her as was 
 stipulated, and second, that he seemed to mean it !" 
 
 "Did she tell you all about it !" 
 
 "Capital! To the last detail. She enacted it to 
 me gravely every bit; and then said to me, most 
 plaintively: Alas, I am afraid he does love me. It 
 would break my heart to pain the good doctor ! 
 
 "The heart of the good doctor," I rejoined, "is 
 not a cooking-school custard for damsels to smear 
 about at their pleasure." I leaned to him and tapped 
 his pipe : "Go catch your dukes, my dear Baron 
 your happy islander can smile and she can weep. 
 What more education does she need ?"
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 139 
 
 "Ah," he sighed. "I must get her away within a 
 year. I am positively glad you came you and this 
 alert young man from the north it has made her 
 forget the cursed barber against whom I fought, in 
 her heart, for two years. But, ah a woman! One 
 never can tell. I have had experience." 
 
 "You have not profited by experience, it seems." 
 "Never! What is so unprofitable? It argues a 
 hardening of the heart a sophistication of the soul, 
 when a man should be keeping his sensibilities green 
 for the ever-recurring whims of fortune. Messieur, 
 the field in which a man can make an ass of him 
 self is illimitable that is what keeps one young of 
 heart." He waved his prodigious pipe: "Look at 
 me now. Five fortunes have I made and lost, and 
 at last, being seventy-five and penniless again, I saw 
 what absurd penalties one pays for industry and 
 application. I roared to myself : Here, you John 
 Bernal, from now on you shall devote yourself to 
 the fashioning of one last exquisite thing before 
 death comes like a frowsy old woman and throws 
 a pan of dirty water over you. You shall find your 
 last romance, you shall come to a child s delight, you 
 shall thrill with the nobleness of service again, and 
 then die like a beggar in the road, but with the last 
 of life s gold just slipped from your fingers. There-
 
 140 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 fore I wandered, seeking it and behold ! The gods 
 threw me this way to my marquise of the isle ! Ah, 
 is she not beautiful?" 
 
 "I suppose so," I murmured languidly to all his 
 chatter. 
 
 "Sir?" He sat up straightly. 
 
 Really, my dear Baron, on her nose, one im 
 agines the ghost of a freckle 
 
 "What?" The old fellow turned about on me 
 grasping his pipe. 
 
 "Oh, very well! Yes, of course she is beautiful." 
 
 He relaxed from that gorilla ferocity. "And 
 iclever ?" 
 
 "Stupendously." 
 
 "And good?" 
 
 "Ah, Messieur le Baron !" I rolled my eyes, posi 
 tively overcome. Really, I was getting very good 
 at this sort of thing. "Ah, Baron!" 
 
 "Ah, Doctor ! You, also, are getting your educa 
 tion. I shall make of you the man I was at forty. 
 Voila! the way I could talk to them! You should 
 have heard me and a pretty woman. Ah, the youth, 
 I lived there are bits of it yet in my old bones to 
 say nothing of my soul !" 
 
 Back he sat with his great pipe bowl on his fat 
 knee and chuckled. "Allesjandro! Play the music!
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 141 
 
 You know what when I am feeling so! From La 
 Favorita, or one of the old ones !" 
 
 And when he heard the bars of that infernal 
 phonograph of his squalling its diabolic course, he 
 sighed: "Eh, well, my good friend. It is a trifle 
 out-at-the-heels, my gallant s song, but think of the 
 soul trying to crawl through the scratches." 
 
 Mosquito time came and the baron had to retire 
 under his bar, but still the bed shook with his keep 
 ing of time with the music. The bowl of his pipe 
 stuck through a rent, and the red ember glowed. 
 I, in my own bunk, watched it and then the grinning 
 Allesjandro out in that smoky room fighting the 
 mosquitoes and keeping the phonograph at its oper 
 atic airs. He slapped citronella on himself and 
 ground the squeaky reel, while the baron muttered 
 his approval. It was a fine slobber of sentiment out 
 of which the baron finally roared to me : "Ah, tell 
 me now could we, as gentlemen, allow her to marry 
 a barber?" 
 
 Messieur le Baron, always, after the fourth glass 
 of his wine, reverted to the original grievance that 
 had detained him at Isle Bonne. At the fifth he had 
 the barber down and the point of his rapier on his 
 gullet; and at the sixth the man was hanged and 
 quartered; at the seventh, ah I will not relate!
 
 142 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 After that I have known a joust with the barber to 
 break down the baron s bed ! 
 
 After a while Allesjandro ceased his winding of 
 the phonograph. I saw him stealing away in his 
 skiff to retire on his lugger that lay out in the cove 
 of the swamp. There was a full moon, and from 
 the height of our platform above the forest pool I 
 could look far out across the encircling marshes to 
 where the light lay in a great splash of yellow on 
 Barataria Bay. I was watching it when a stir came. 
 I could not make it out at first. 
 
 Then it became a soft parting of the thatch across 
 the room from me near the baron s bed, and just 
 at the level of the floor. 
 
 Silently I watched that scratching. Then a whis 
 per came. 
 
 "Monsieur?" 
 
 "Mon chere!" 
 
 "Messieur le Doctor is quite asleep?" 
 
 "I am as sure as I am of your beauty," breathed 
 the baron, "that I heard him snore. I was waiting 
 for you, mademoiselle." 
 
 "Ah, if we were only rid of him this night would 
 be like the other beautiful nights! Ah, messieur, 
 we could talk all night !" 
 
 "Hear the good doctor snore or is it an insect in
 
 HIS LAST MARQUISE 143 
 
 the palms ? He sleeps like all the others. Ah, mon 
 chere!" He reached through his netting and was 
 patting her head. "After all, there is no one of 
 them all like me, is there now ?" 
 
 "None at all, messieur, who can speak like you." 
 
 He gurgled softly and I knew he was kissing her 
 fingers. "Mademoiselle, you should have heard me 
 even thirty years ago. Alas, my dear!" He was 
 getting out of bed with many a sigh. "I knew you 
 would come, little night lark. Never would you 
 drowse with that fool of a grandfather when there 
 is a moon like this." 
 
 "The dear doctor hear him snore." 
 
 "Infamous ! If he were the man I was at his age, 
 even, he would be beating out the woods for you, he 
 would be cudgeling his head for a phrase to offer 
 you. Name of God hear the man snore! Ro 
 mance is dead in this world, my Marquise, ex 
 cept for me. But I I tell you you are divine." 
 
 "Merd, Messieur le Baron." 
 
 "Never will you think of a barber again, will 
 you?" 
 
 "Alas poor Antoine! After all he write me he 
 is not much of a barbeh, and so can he come back 
 and marry me ?" 
 
 "I will chase him off the island again. Ah, when
 
 144 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 we leave here, my Marquise, you shall have a lover 
 such as I was yet not quite." 
 
 "Here is this New York fel-lo," she sighed. "Only 
 I m sure he has a lady somewhere nawth. He is 
 sad at times. And the good doctor ah, me, when 
 shall I know enough to be a credit to you, messieur ? 
 I really don t want to love any one it is a terrible 
 bore to play at it." 
 
 "Have patience. You will have an exquisite re 
 venge on all of them, even that grim ox, Williams. 
 You can snap your small fingers in his face I tell 
 you I know what I am about." 
 
 "The wind," she murmured presently, "is south 
 east and there is no rain. Messieur, somehow, I 
 am frightened at your plan." 
 
 "When it is done we shall shrug our shoulders; 
 the ways of God and the course of the wind are in 
 scrutable." 
 
 "Ah, but " she cried suddenly, and as if in pain, 
 "I do not wish to hurt him no, no not that! I 
 am afraid of him, and yet and yet " 
 
 "And yet what, mademoiselle ?" 
 
 "There is a mosquito on your nose, messieur," 
 she rejoined absently, and I heard her seedy knight 
 whack himself roundly after it.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 
 
 THE night of the ball we reached Isle Bonne late. 
 There had been some trouble with the motor, 
 and when the launch at length drew out of Virgil s 
 canal into the tidal lakes and turned westward along 
 the thick cane shore that stretched to the cheniere, 
 the moon was high and big, and the south wind 
 brought a fancied murmur of the surges beyond the 
 outlying reefs. 
 
 There came the scraping of a violin somewhere 
 from the shadows beyond Isle Bonne s shell white 
 shores ; then a dim light on Papa Prosper s gallerie, 
 and down the plank wharf the guests streamed to 
 meet us. On the beach many pirogues were drawn, 
 in the offing rode half a dozen luggers, their sails 
 limp; and as many tubby little gas boats were 
 grouped about the wharf -head. 
 
 And many were the soft "bon soirs" and shy 
 greetings. I did not know the lonely chenieres held 
 so many folk. But from all the lakes and shrimp 
 
 145
 
 i 4 6 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 camps and swamp bayous they had come to Laure s 
 party. Our wood saint was all gaiety in a white 
 gown white, indeed, from her slipper toes to the 
 wild blackberry bloom in her hair. She led the 
 procession that escorted us Yankee fel-los along 
 the shell beach to the old sto and introduced us 
 along the way. There was Elodie, the daughter of 
 a shrimp captain from Bassa Bassa; and Anastasie, 
 from Periac Woods, and Antoinette from Grand 
 Isle, and Felecie and Jeannie from lower Barataria, 
 and Juanita Du Fong, the Chino-Spanish girl from 
 the Cavagnac coast of whom it was proudly said her 
 uncle was in the penitentiary, convicted of peonage 
 in his shrimp camp. Oh, many the girls there were 
 at our ball, and shyly they looked at the strangers 
 from among their brown-throated brothers and 
 sweethearts in the dim-lighted hall. On the gallerie 
 up rose Papa Prosper with, as ever, his ancient city 
 newspaper upside down, removing his cigarette from 
 his loose, gray-shaven lip. The baron was there, 
 and Papa bowed with pro fund courtesy to show 
 Messieur le Baron, one time of the Louisiana Lot 
 tery Company and le bon Dieu only knew where 
 else, how a Creole gentleman of the south chenieres 
 could retain the graces of his ancestors at vice 
 regal courts.
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 147 
 
 "Ah, messieurs, five weeks now I have sat here 
 to await you to call. I would not go f eesh, I would 
 not go crab, I would not go f o nuttin ; f o I says : 
 Prosper, it is not courteous dat you go fo work 
 when dem gentlemen may call some time. Isle 
 Bonne, all over, she await you." 
 
 "All a-time Papa expect somebody to call," put 
 in Laure. "So never does he expect to go to work." 
 
 We assured Papa of our appreciation. About the 
 old sto skipped small boys and girls shaving tallow 
 candles to make the boards more smooth. On the 
 ancient counter of Prosper s defunct store sat Sim, 
 the accordion man and a pimply young fiddler, and 
 now they began a crochety waltz. And when the 
 silent young couples were off, I turned to see the 
 baron keeping time with his pipe. Vast was his 
 delight; broad was the benignity which he beamed 
 forth upon Virgil who sat against the gallerie rail. 
 About us swarmed the gentle youngsters fearing to 
 enter the ballroom yet filled with that ecstasy of 
 Sim, the accordion man, and the little fiddler. Down 
 each side of the hall sat the shawled swamp mothers, 
 their nun-black garb setting off the white dresses of 
 the dancers. Every one danced except these the 
 lanky, solemn-faced fishers and wiry hunters, a ro 
 tund little sto clerk from La Fourche; even Big
 
 148 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Jim, our engineer, secured the favor of the Chino- 
 Spanish girl and towered above them all with many 
 a wink back to his boss. Virgil declined it all. 
 
 "Somehow, it doesn t run in our family," he com 
 mented. "Most balls I been to wound up in a shoot- 
 in anyhow, so I just got so I only stick around and 
 watch fo which fel-lo opens up the trouble. But I 
 ain t insinuatin anything, Doctor. These cajun 
 balls ain t that way unless you strike one at the 
 shrimp camps after pay-day." 
 
 His eye followed the merry-makers with a humor 
 of condescension; clearly he felt a superiority to the 
 swamp folk who in turn looked upon him in amiable 
 but shifty evasion. The feud of Isle Bonne was 
 known to them all, but though they wondered at 
 our presence at the ball, their rare native courtesy 
 kept the slightest gossip under cover. 
 
 Other guests were arriving, mainly lean-hipped 
 market hunters from the deep swamp who beached 
 their pirogues and came up in their very tight trou 
 sers and well-washed denims. Softly they greeted 
 us, and bright-eyed they peered within the hall. To 
 each up rose Papa Prosper and the baron, one on 
 either side of the door, and welcomed them with 
 their grandest airs. Neither would be outdone; if 
 Messieur le Baron bowed twice, Papa bowed thrice,
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 149 
 
 and being as lean as the worthy baron was fat, he 
 could bow just twice as far in half the time. 
 
 "Ah, dis life," sighed Papa, "too many balls, 
 m sieu, it would be bad as work. Wan time when I 
 was a young man I went to a ball at La Chcniere 
 and me dat tired I did get. I say, Prosper, neve 
 no more you go fo dis fast life. It is best fo you, 
 Prosper, dat you go sit on you gallerie mebbe so, 
 some time you get rich lak a millionaire." 
 
 Behind his pipe the baron grunted dissent from 
 this pleasing possibility. "See now what a noble 
 line has come to, Doctor," he murmured to me. 
 "Forty years he has sat looking off his gallerie, and 
 now behind him the Yankees have come " he broke 
 off with his sly old wink. "Ah, well, we have a truce 
 to-night, have we not?" He flourished his pipe at 
 the door. "Had I two good legs and more wind in 
 me !" He chucked a fat little girl under the ear as 
 she passed. Then he pounded the floor with his foot. 
 "But here I sit, the devil take it ! And my marquise, 
 oh, the life I would have for her! Youth was never 
 made for the chimney corners let it roar forth 
 songs, friendships, loves go homeward at dawns 
 and sleep off the price it pays. Ah, Doctor, the price 
 is high but worth it look at me now? Could any 
 thing purchase the memories I have ?"
 
 ISO JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 And he winked a Machiavellian blessing on the 
 waltzers, rapping out the time with his pipe. Papa 
 Prosper nodded: "Ah, dis life! We people of the 
 swamp, m sieu, we have a savin in crevasse time 
 when it rain and the water all about our platforms : 
 When she come from the bottom up and she come 
 from the top down, God meant us to be wet. When 
 a young man be with a girl with the music so, and 
 the moonlight across Isle Bonne woods so, God 
 meant it fo love." 
 
 Wondrous was their moonlight and the south 
 wind from their sea! I watched all that gentle 
 youth within until the dingy hall fell away in long 
 vistas over-arched by dreams and then I was aware 
 that my eyes were upon Clell and Laure. They were 
 swinging slowly in the soft light ; with his tall fair 
 ease, looking down at her upturned face, and she 
 answering him with that air of distinction, of whim 
 sical appeal and caressing which she could use. I 
 became aware that every one was looking at them. 
 One dissatisfied damsel, brushing by me with her 
 escort to the cooler gallerie, voiced it : 
 
 "Laure Drouillot, all a-time she dance with that 
 Yankee fel-lo. Me I don t care, but she needn t 
 talk to us about mannehs !" 
 
 Virgil was watching them also. I saw the dumb
 
 wistfulness of the man who had given his youth 
 to fighting years and had, along the way, forgotten 
 something that might have made them fairer. He 
 did not dance; he declined both the baron s studied 
 importunities and Laure s jesting glances. 
 
 "That a man should want to think of digging 
 ditches when he might dance," she murmured, with 
 ever so faint a suggestion of hostile fires; and tuck 
 ed away in a corner of the gallerie, her white slip 
 pers clear of the rough floor, I heard her sigh to her 
 young Yankee fel-lo, who seemed to be the next 
 one: "Ah, of you I can not believe that, M sieu 
 Clell." She looked languidly at the Texan across 
 the gallerie. "Sometime I do not believe your heart 
 is in it this digging up of our isle." 
 
 "When I m here with you," Clell answered, "I 
 can t believe it myself." 
 
 Virgil heard him. To tell the truth, one of my 
 reasons for getting them here this evening was to see 
 if some fortuitous thing would not bring the two 
 out of their implacability it was getting to be 
 ghastly to me. I had an impression now that Laure 
 was guessing at it. She had turned intently to watch 
 the Texan, measuring him as he sat listening to old 
 Prosper s meanderings. The baron was behind 
 them, and now I saw him signal to the girl. I was
 
 152 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 sure of it, a smile, a beckon, a shrug that indicated 
 Williams. And she seemed to hesitate, watching 
 across her fan; and then, at a more decided and 
 silent request from the old man, she slipped down 
 and was across to Virgil. She tapped his sleeve, 
 with a smile. He turned, startled at the manifest 
 invitation. 
 
 "Ah, if you won t dance with Elodie or me, come 
 try the sherbet anisette." She laughed as if daring 
 him to unbend, to be one of them and with her. 
 "Won t you, now, m sieu? Come for to-night, a 
 truce. Come on the other gallerie, where the sher 
 bet is. And there s a little seat. We will not talk 
 of Isle Bonne only nom de Dieu! What folly to 
 sue us. It has been ours since the days of the vice 
 roys of Spain." 
 
 He went along with her a trifle hesitant now at 
 her ardent intent to please him. When he was 
 seated, she found a perch on the gallerie rail, and, 
 nibbling one of the little cakes that Juan Rojas, the 
 head villager of Isle L Ourse, had brought from the 
 river towns, she continued her arch interest as 
 though, at last, really wanting to know what sort of 
 an animal it was burrowing across her island. 
 
 Virgil seemed to be wondering and yet I knew 
 he was bewildered by the closeness of her, her airs,
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 153 
 
 at once barbaric and quaintly of an exquisite and 
 vanished breeding, touched with the pertness of to 
 day. F"or she could show all of these at times; I 
 was more astonished, as I noted her evening s trans 
 formation. She wore her gown the simple rich 
 gown of the Comtis ball imported by that New Or 
 leans aunt with an odd and merry nonchalance in 
 that rough room in an endeavor to make the other 
 girls feel at ease. 
 
 But Virgil seemed directly indifferent to her chat 
 ter. Presently he faced her seriously. 
 
 "I been wonderin why you brought me ove here 
 to-night ?" 
 
 She started; her eyes had been on the wall of 
 forest behind the house; a shimmer of moonlight 
 fell through upon the pools, but it seemed to take the 
 pink of dawn. Within the wide hall the droning 
 waltzes went on; there were no other dances, and 
 the luckless sto clerk from La Fourche who tried 
 to dilate upon the tango to the islanders, got only 
 wondering stares. The floor shook with the waltz- 
 ers movements; but out here in the cool dark the 
 rough edges were taken from the festivities. I was 
 all but asleep with the peace of Laure s isle; one 
 could just make out that she was leaning to Virgil 
 from the
 
 154 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "I thought, perhaps, m sieu, as we are such ex 
 cellent enemies, we should be better acquainted." 
 
 "Ah," I mused, "so, at last he is to be the next 
 one? Well, you can not win Virgil from his own 
 job personal and specified." 
 
 The Texan was answering calmly; if he had ever 
 loved the girl, he held himself aloof from it now. 
 "Enemies ? I hate to call it that. Only, I neve had 
 the chance to be anything else it was my game, 
 you see." 
 
 "And mine," she murmured, "was just to hate 
 you, so. Only one wonders one can not have ex 
 actly as one wishes, after all." 
 
 "No." She might have known how vain her co 
 quetry was from his voice; perhaps she did. At 
 least she sighed, and drew herself up to a small heap 
 in the corner. He went on steadily : "One of these 
 days you and Papa Prosper will be sorry you didn t 
 accept the forty thousand the company offered you 
 three years ago fo a quit-claim." 
 
 "And cut up our island ?" 
 
 "Five years more," Virgil retorted irrelevantly, 
 "this timber will be out of the swamp and all your 
 prairie will be raising early stuff for the Chicago 
 markets. Isle Bonne ll be the first good to the 
 world it ever was. But you you little thing. The
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 155 
 
 world ll be a pretty rough place for you when you 
 have to get out in it. It isn t flowers and honey 
 bees; and all you know here of woods and wateh 
 won t be any manneh of use to you then. That s 
 why I m sorry." 
 
 "You are sorry, messieur?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Ah, that is good! My little saint in there upon 
 the wall some-a-time I ask her a little prayer for 
 to change your heart." I heard him stir; he was 
 not used to that to women and the softness of the 
 night, to pretty speeches and allurements. Clell 
 would have met her with banter or with a sentiment 
 of her own. But Virgil well, I thought of Mary 
 and the twelve years the man waited for her stub 
 bornly before he gave her up. If there was love 
 in him, it was like the strength in him, wrought of 
 the beaten metal of defeat. Laure might play with 
 him, but she had best let his sleeping soul lie. If 
 it slept! 
 
 "You little thing !" he muttered suddenly. "They 
 got no call to let you stay in all this foolishness. 
 They fill you with dreams, they neve let you come 
 face to face with things. If they did you 
 wouldn t fight me or my job yondeh. Things would 
 have been different."
 
 156 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I could not catch her low answer. I wondered 
 what would have been different with him or with 
 her. What stubborn triumph had he planned? 
 
 "Well," I mused. "Bother them all. I have done 
 my duty even as my host saw it. I proposed to the 
 minx what more can the old buzz-saw of a baron 
 desire ? As for the rest of it, thank God, I am forty- 
 six. Youth is a manifest disaster, and the sooner 
 done the better." 
 
 I opened my eyes again and flicked a mosquito 
 from the tip of my ear. They were talking more 
 softly; and within the store the droning music and 
 the shuffle of feet went on. Out in the moonlight 
 offing a fisher was singing on his lugger and his 
 furnace fire of charcoal made a red spot in the night. 
 Beyond him the giant gars leaped among the floating 
 lilies, and beyond that was the starry dusk. But my 
 eyes wandered sleepily to the left where was the im 
 penetrable cypress jungle. A pink bloom was 
 against or behind it. And while I watched this, some 
 one came along the gallerie and leaned to me. It 
 was Clell, and he motioned to the forest. 
 
 "The marsh is burning. Big Jim says it must be 
 beyond the canal, and the wind is right to bring it 
 in. Where s Williams?" 
 
 "There." I motioned to them. But Clell did not
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 157 
 
 go on. Never yet had he directly addressed his su 
 perior save at their work, and then coolly, curtly, 
 nothing more than was needed. 
 
 "Tell him," Clell muttered, "the dynamite boat 
 is in the main ditch not thirty yards from the dredge 
 and in the fire-line as that wind holds." 
 
 Virgil must have heard him. I knew his chair 
 had dropped swiftly. He was on his feet and by 
 us, staring about the end of the gallerie where now 
 the south was a glow beyond the forest wall. 
 
 "Mangy and Al are asleep in the quarter-boat, 
 too." He lifted a hand to test the breeze. "You 
 cain t tell how it s blowin here." He turned his 
 quick glance in the hall. And there I saw the Baron 
 de Vedrinnes vast bulk in the door, and he was 
 smiling. Virgil shot a look at me. Then he jumped 
 nearer with clenched hands. 
 
 For an instant I thought he would seize the old 
 fellow by the neck. The baron was bowing. The 
 play was obvious enough from his sardonic airs. 
 Williams turned, checking his words, saw Laure 
 beyond in the semi-darkness, and came past me to 
 her. He stopped full before her and spoke quietly. 
 
 "You asked me here to-night, you showed me the 
 first real kindness in all the years I been here. And 
 I see now I see why you had me sit there" he
 
 158 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 pointed to the gallerie corner "my back to the 
 woods and the prairie beyond the prairie dry as 
 tinder, and my dredge in it." 
 
 "M sieu?" She was looking wonderingly at him. 
 
 "You knew I reckon, that there are two men sleep- 
 in* on it, and four tons of dynamite and black pow 
 der in the ditch near em ? Did you ?" 
 
 The baron was bowing again with profound 
 courtesy. The other guests were straying out in 
 wonderment. The music had ceased. The Texan 
 fingered his white hat before Laure and spoke on 
 quietly. 
 
 "Killin two men you didn t think of that, did 
 you?" 
 
 The motor on the launch broke out to whirring 
 as Big Jim got the boat turned. The Texan was 
 moving past me, when Laure came. 
 
 "M sieu, you did not think you can not think " 
 
 "I know," he answered. "They did it the bar 
 on s niggers. But you did you know ?" 
 
 She did not answer. The baron was rubbing his 
 hands. The half world to the south was growing 
 brighter. The Texan looked resolutely at her. "Did 
 you ? Say no and I ll believe you." 
 
 She could not. She fled past him suddenly to the 
 end of the wharf; she was reaching her hands to
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 159 
 
 Clell in the launch, when Virgil brushed grimly past 
 her into it. He did not look at her again. 
 
 "Reclfield, are you goin in with me to drag that 
 dynamite away from the machine. There s a chance 
 just one chance." 
 
 "Yes," Clell retorted, "I m going." 
 
 They crouched low in the boat as it shot out and 
 around the gleaming shell point of Isle Bonne to 
 the lake. "Nine miles," I heard the boss mutter, 
 and he held a lantern to his watch. "Nine miles, and 
 that ditch will be a pit of fire every foot from the 
 lake boom." 
 
 Then they disappeared; and I stood listening to 
 the faint beat of the motor, looking at the red sky 
 beyond the cypress wall. The swampers on Pros- 
 per s gallerie were listening curiously. In the splotch 
 of light at the door stood the baron. 
 
 "Ah, my friends," he said, "it is not yet twelve 
 compose yourselves. The gentlemen have gone, but 
 the night is young." 
 
 Laure and myself were left on the end of the 
 wharf. "See here," I demanded. "That old devil 
 knew! I wondered why this affair was got up 
 and we were asked. If that dredge burns, Williams 
 loses his contract and he s done for. You knew 
 that!"
 
 160 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She clasped her hands. "Why did you let them 
 go ! They can t get in the canal is filled with fire." 
 
 "They will go in there are a fireman and a cook 
 there. And the dredge did you think Williams 
 would abandon it?" 
 
 "The powder boat they will not dare approach !" 
 
 "They will. And look here you never thought 
 of that, did you! If they are killed 
 
 With a cry, she turned and ran from me. And I 
 followed, hating her as nearly as I had hated any 
 one. My boy was there flying into that fire-filled 
 ditch with death at the farther end. He would not 
 have refused Virgil if the boss had asked him to 
 step into hell for the pride of the man s size job. 
 But there was Mary, I was thinking of. 
 
 I found the girl throwing off the line from her 
 cypress canoe. 
 
 "I shall go I can be there before them!" she 
 cried, "through the swamp will you go with me, 
 messieur?" 
 
 I stepped into the ticklish thing. With a draw 
 of her paddle swiftly down among the cypress spikes 
 she shot the pirogue on. I had a vision of Papa 
 Prosper, his hands up in horror, gazing after us ; and 
 heard a shout from the baron. He stood in the 
 light, waving his pipe furiously. When the pirogue
 
 A BALL AND A BETRAYAL 161 
 
 slipped from the first dense shadows into a watery 
 aisle of the forest, a fleck of the moonlight fell upon 
 Laure s face. It was very tense, darkling with re- 
 solves and rebellions. 
 
 I steadied myself and watched the play of her 
 lithe strong arms as she swept the needle of wood 
 onward on the unfathomable trail. 
 
 "You know the way, mademoiselle?" 
 
 She laughed hardly. "Isle Bonne my island? 
 There is no leaf in its big woods is not my little 
 friend !" 
 
 "Well," I drew out my pipe and lighted it. "You 
 have murdered two men to-night perhaps four. 
 What does the little saint on the wall back there, 
 in your pirate isle, think of that?" 
 
 She would not answer, her eyes staring now at the 
 blood red of the horizon where we caught a bit of 
 it down a space of the flooded forest.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 
 
 LAURE found her way across the three miles of 
 cypress to the floating prairie, with me facing 
 her in the bow of her tiny dugout by what miracle 
 of wood-sense I do not know. About immense 
 windfalls of down timber where we lifted the dead 
 limbs and the tangle of bamboo brier to slip under, 
 between huge, rotted stumps festooned with great 
 ferns, pushing through the myriad-spiked areas 
 about the buttresses of the standing cypress some 
 how she found a trail through pool and water aisle, 
 and as we neared the burning prairie, the gloom 
 under the moss canopy became the pink of a fur 
 nace, a living curtain palpitant with the twisting, 
 changing sheen of the embers. 
 
 We saw now the caney spaces between spurs of 
 the dead forest, and the sloughs shining red. And 
 outlined against the line of fire was Virgil s dredge, 
 its huge crane lifted, the black bulk of the house and 
 the windows under the smoke billows. Then the 
 trees hid it. But the girl turned to me sharply. 
 
 162
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 163 
 
 "You lied to frighten me. There are no men 
 there!" 
 
 "Where could they go ?" I retorted. "They could 
 not cross the floating prairie. They must be and 
 Williams will find them the launch is in that canal 
 now coming with the wind and fire. And they have 
 to pass the dynamite boat to reach them." 
 
 "They can t !" she answered. "It is too late." 
 
 "They will." 
 
 She bit her finger-tips with a fury or remorse, I 
 could not tell which. "They did not tell me they 
 did not tell me !" she whispered. 
 
 "Who did not and tell you what ?" 
 
 But she merely muttered, and stared down the 
 shining line of Virgil s canal of which we could 
 catch a glimpse. For a mile from a near turn it 
 was a slit of a mirror, ruffled along one margin by 
 the breeze, but the far end was lost in a lurid cur 
 tain. Out of that they would have to come in the 
 launch if they ever got that far in from the lake 
 end of the ditcK. 
 
 "And they will," I retorted again. "Nothing will 
 stop them." 
 
 "See there," she cried. "The dynamite boat 
 it s two hundred yards from the dredge. Oh, if the 
 fire would reach it now before they appear. Mes-
 
 164 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 sieur Doctor, if we could explode it they would 
 be safe." 
 
 "Yes, but" 
 
 She had swerved the canoe sharply about and was 
 among the fantastic trees in that red and unearthly 
 gloom. So silently, with impetuous passion, she 
 worked that I did not comprehend what she was do 
 ing until the pirogue swept out in a glade, margined 
 with tall saw-grass at the edge of the forest; and 
 then I saw something that made me forget her in 
 my astonishment. 
 
 The pirogue was grounding in one of the low 
 hard ridges of shells that ran so mysteriously 
 through the swamps. And from this ridge some 
 thing sheered up before me; I put my hand to it 
 upon dry, rotted planking, a chain, a rusted stay. 
 It was the broken stem of a schooner! 
 
 The girl was out and flying along the ridge. Then 
 I saw a dying fire before which stood a negro, and 
 beyond him apparently a rough stockade built out 
 over the water and seemingly over the midship sec 
 tion of the sunken vessel. Above this stockade was 
 a rude derrick. On the top of this sat another negro 
 who was looking down with amazement to made 
 moiselle. She was speaking to them sharply. They 
 turned to look at me and I saw the stupefied fear
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 165 
 
 on their broad shining faces. One was Hogjaw, the 
 renegade fireman from the dredge; and there was 
 menace in his recognition of me. 
 
 Slowly I was grasping the meaning of the stock 
 ade of slabs. It was a rough caisson built over the 
 sunken cabin of that rotted schooner; planks and 
 timbers driven down on either side of her gunwale 
 and across her beam. In some manner and at some 
 high tide she had been beached here, her prow high 
 over the shell ridge, her stern beneath the black 
 waters of the glade. 
 
 And the midnight workers were trying to pump 
 the water from her midsection; that was the mean 
 ing of the caisson and the rude derrick that sup 
 ported the rusty length of pump. I jumped on the 
 edge of the stockade and looked over the red pools 
 and runways to the marsh. Now, I knew. A mile 
 away was Williams dredge and another round of 
 cutting through the marsh would bring it almost 
 upon the secret workers at the wrecked ancient 
 schooner. And a phrase of Laure s came back to me 
 from her night conference with the baron : 
 
 "The dredge must not go a mile farther there 
 is danger!" 
 
 Danger to what ? 
 
 I had no chance to ask her. She was back upon
 
 166 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 me suspiciously, seeing me peering over the stock 
 ade. Now she carried a rifle and slid it under the 
 thwarts of her pirogue. "Come come," she cried : 
 "I have a plan for them those fools who will rush 
 into death !" 
 
 "What is this here?" I demanded. 
 
 "Never mind, messieur." She flashed an imperi 
 ous glance on me : "I told you long ago some things 
 I suppose you will learn more. But, now " 
 
 She swept her craft out in the pool. The burning 
 grass was showering down about us; the heavens 
 were a flame from the far sea margins to the zenith. 
 When we were a hundred yards out in the marsh, 
 the light was as from a world on fire. Isle Bonne 
 woods were a black patch with far points of flame 
 reaching on either side of us. 
 
 Laure brushed her hair back. I offered to assist 
 her and got in return, her open contempt. 
 
 "Help? What can you do? Can you paddle a 
 pirogue? You you can hardly balance yourself in 
 it. Sit still!" 
 
 "You might tell me what wild scheme this is. 
 Mademoiselle, you are steering us into certain 
 death." 
 
 "Well, then," she said passionately, "go back 
 you can swim and crawl to the chcniere and hide
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 167 
 
 in the timber if you desire. It will not burn only 
 the cane will burn over the flotteau" 
 
 "You can not scorn me like that, mademoiselle. 
 You know I won t leave you to go alone. Only, 
 what are you going to do what help for those men 
 whom you and the baron got into this trap?" 
 
 She shrugged. "You have no proof of anything." 
 
 "You are trying to prevent us from finding out 
 why you are digging into that old wreck. That is 
 the main reason why you are trying to delay the 
 dredge that and to make Williams lose his con 
 tract." 
 
 "Yes? Suppose that wreck is mine? Suppose it 
 was my Great-uncle Armand s schooner, and was 
 driven in here by the hurricane? Do you remem 
 ber Last Island, messieur, and 1854?" 
 
 I did, and I told her so tartly. I added that Ar- 
 mand was a slave-runner and a smuggler, and some 
 other of her older family history that all the south 
 coast people knew. Then she laughed impatiently, 
 a trifle wildly: "Non de Dieu! Who cares? What 
 do a few pirates in one s family matter? Be still 
 am I not stricken enough, to-night ? Messieur, only 
 last week you said you loved me !" 
 
 "Exactly and I didn t mean a word of it." She 
 stopped paddling and looked at me dangerously.
 
 i68 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 That unearthly light made her a red and gold girl 
 with a mute hard face, a medallion from a fiery 
 cast hot but passionless ; something that could sting 
 and feel not. 
 
 Then she swept the sliver of wood on through 
 the narrow channel of the cane. "Messieur, I know 
 a deal more than you think I do I did not need 
 your love-making for my education." 
 
 "That is the joke of it," I retorted. "And any 
 how, making love to you would bore me desperately. 
 Throwing ducks and burning dredges are not ex 
 actly the manners I would desire." 
 
 Then she laughed again, and plunged her young 
 strength against the paddle blade. "Yankees so 
 amuse one," she murmured, and her glance went 
 now at the mirrored channel and now at my face. 
 "And they are so helpless! Here is my rifle 
 could you hit a post-card with it at one hundred 
 yards?" 
 
 "Not a bit and what is excellent, I do not have 
 to." 
 
 She was watching the domes of smoke cloud at 
 the zenith. The fire-line was not a mile distant 
 now. Presently the crooked shallow run of the 
 marsh we were following opened to a reedy lakelet
 
 "Yankees so amuse one," she murmured
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 169 
 
 and out of this we came to a slough across which 
 I saw the dredge again. 
 
 "See there," I cried, and pointed out the figures 
 of two men on it. 
 
 She nodded. And then she cried out in a new 
 fear. We had come out into the dug channel now, 
 and far down its shining length to the east we saw 
 the launch against the fire-line. It had come 
 through, by some miracle, and was sweeping on to 
 us. Laure steadied her boat a moment. The dredge 
 was not a quarter of a mile in the other direction. 
 And all along the farther margin of the ditch the 
 fire was running. Only the line of dredged mud 
 held its intolerable heat from us. Down the canal 
 it had leaped the water in half a dozen places and 
 was racing along both banks. When it reached us 
 well, I felt of the water. It was warm under the 
 reflected heat. 
 
 I pointed toward the dredge. "The dynamite," I 
 muttered. "You see, mademoiselle?" 
 
 "I see. The fire is to it the moorings are burn 
 ing. It will drift out and down toward those men 
 on the dredge " 
 
 "Not if Williams can reach it first!" 
 
 She glanced at the launch not a half-mile distant.
 
 i ;o JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "He will never reach it, messieur. None of those 
 madmen. Nor will it reach the dredge." She had 
 grounded the pirogue on the canal side across from 
 the fire and was out among the great clods. I stag 
 gered out and to her side. The sweep of the hot 
 wind was intolerable; the first draw of it down my 
 lungs made me reel. I saw Laure muffle her mouth 
 and nose in the hollow of her elbow. But she stum 
 bled on down the embankment, dragging the rifle 
 after her. 
 
 "Laure!" I shouted, "come back what are you 
 doing?" 
 
 She was measuring the distance intently to the 
 square-ended scow under whose corrugated roof 
 was stored the dynamite. I stared at her and then 
 the launch that was speeding on to pass us. Sud 
 denly she turned to me and cried out. 
 
 "In which end of the hold is the black powder!" 
 
 "It is forward in cannisters of tin, I think. The 
 dynamite is boxed." 
 
 And before the words left me she had fired the 
 automatic rifle deliberately into the scow side. It 
 was a good two hundred yards away but drifting 
 out now plainly in the blazing margin of the canal. 
 The dredge beyond it was hidden in the billowing 
 smoke. And again the girl fired again and again.
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 171 
 
 I could not hear the reports in the roar of the fire 
 across from us. It was searing my face, and my 
 clothes were blazing. Laure fired again at the dyna 
 mite scow. I heard her mutter despairingly. She 
 could not locate the black powder cans with her 
 steel- jacketed bullets and each instant Virgil s 
 launch was sweeping on to pass us, to plunge on into 
 the fiery pass to rescue his imprisoned men. She 
 saw the launch now almost abreast of us. And they 
 saw us ; I caught dell s blackened face aghast, star 
 ing at the sight of us on the levee line. And while 
 I was motioning to him, to Virgil who was crouched 
 over his steering wheel, the earth went out from un 
 der my feet, the sky collapsed. 
 
 I came to my senses slowly, knowing only that I 
 was trying to lift my face out of the black mud; 
 that over and past me a swift surge of water had 
 come; and then that Laure was pounding at my 
 back, crying for me to rise up. For a moment I 
 could not get the stuff from my eyes; then I saw a 
 dark world about us, shot with falling sparks and 
 beyond this an outer space of fire. Men were stum 
 bling up the wrecked levee. In places it had been 
 blown sheer with the grass line. The fire was out 
 for hundreds of yards about us, the marsh was a 
 black carpet with winking flecks of fire. I knew
 
 172 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 now that Clell was trying to help me to my feet; 
 that Big Jim had lifted Laure who, it seemed, had 
 now fallen insensible. 
 
 Virgil stood on the highest point of his wrecked 
 embankment staring down the canal. Presently, 
 among the dense bursts of smoke from the black 
 plain I saw an outline of his dredge. That was 
 what he was looking for apparently. Merely that, 
 for he turned to us quietly, with a sigh. 
 
 "Blew that fire out for a hundred yards beyond 
 it," he murmured. "Yes, seh! The only spot in ten 
 square miles that didn t go." Then he looked at the 
 far woods of the black island. "And you came 
 through there, Doctor Dick with her?" 
 
 I tried to speak but the breath was blown from 
 me. The Texan had knelt to feel of her cheek. 
 Then he lifted her and strode down to the launch 
 that had been smashed into the canal bank by the 
 tidal wave from that dynamite. Slowly he trickled 
 a bit of the warm water on her brow; then wiped 
 it away with his sleeve. 
 
 "I m a son-of-a-gun," he murmured again gently, 
 "she did the only thing that could have saved the 
 dredge." 
 
 "She did it," I muttered, "to save you. Damn 
 your dredge !"
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 173 
 
 The girl was writhing on the levee side and 
 muttering in her patois of the swamps. Clell 
 squeezed more dirty water from his handkerchief 
 so that it fell upon her temples, and upon her gown 
 of the Comus ball, that one link of the world to her 
 wild island. After a while she gasped, breathed 
 slower and then Clell raised her gently so that she 
 sat and stared about her. Big Jim, sitting on the 
 gunwale of the overturned launch, looked her over 
 casually. Virgil, his arms crossed, seemed to speak 
 out of a great content at length. 
 
 "I asked you to deny you knew of it," he said, 
 "and you couldn t. You tricked me. I cain t f o get 
 that but I can fo get you. And I will." 
 
 He turned aside to look at the motor-boat, and 
 then beyond to the flecks of fire about his loved 
 monster. We heard Mangy hallooing in scared 
 fashion from some hiding-place. The Texan spoke 
 again impersonally as if to us all. 
 
 "I don t fight that way. I don t hit from behind." 
 
 I saw Laure s face whiten beneath his slow scorn. 
 Suddenly I was seized with an unreasoning anger 
 at Virgil and his affairs, whether they involved my 
 own ruin or not. I shook my fist wildly at them all. 
 
 "Hit from behind? Why she just saved you 
 saved all of you, your lives and fortunes with the
 
 174 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 crack of that gun! And there s not a man of you 
 could have crossed the swamp and done it! Not 
 one!" 
 
 I glared at the three men, black and tattered as 
 they were. The Texan watched me and his old se 
 rene smile came again. He moved nearer to the girl 
 who was sitting up bewilderedly in the saw-grass 
 and staring at the lurid sky-line. "Well, then fo 
 that, I thank you. Just that." 
 
 She held her heavy hair back from her brow 
 which must have been aching as badly as my own 
 from the concussion of that dynamite. 
 
 "I did not desire you to die, m sieu," she mut 
 tered slowly. "As for the rest I shall not answer. I 
 answer nothing. I hate you again!" 
 
 "I beat you," he replied quietly. "I expaict I did 
 you little thing as if matters weren t hard 
 enough without fightin you." He looked again with 
 a mighty pride at his black squat machine. "But I 
 can do that, too personal and specified." 
 
 He went on back to where Clell and Big Jim 
 had gone to inspect what damage the twenty thou 
 sand dollar dredge might have incurred from the 
 dynamite. I was left alone with Laure on the levee 
 side in the unearthly glare of the far fire S on th"e 
 marsh and against the fringe of the dying forest.
 
 A GOWN AND DYNAMITE 175 
 
 I became aware that she was weeping now, silent 
 ly and alone, a prisoner on the Texan s line of 
 earth. 
 
 "Please, please, child," I began. "It s not so bad 
 as that bad enough for tears." 
 
 "Yes, it is!" she cried, and sobbed again. "Look 
 look my little gown! My Paris gown of the 
 Comus ball. The Carnival King complimented 
 me he said it was pretty my little gown!" 
 
 I had to let her cry it out.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 
 
 AT sunrise after a wretched few hours while the 
 men dragged the swamped launch from the 
 canal, bailed and righted it, and had begun to take 
 an inventory of the damage done, I came upon Vir 
 gil silently looking at the corrugated iron roof of his 
 dredge. A six-foot length of the stern post of the 
 dynamite scow had hurtled down through the iron 
 and smashed a steam-pipe on the boilers, and an 
 other piece of debris had neatly clipped a section 
 of the rim from a gear wheel that operated his two- 
 yard "clam-shell" bucket. 
 
 The boss looked at his watch thoughtfully. "Two 
 weeks," he mused, "that s what the pawty cost me." 
 He looked down the shining length of his canal, 
 and then forward at the pathless waste of saw- 
 grass and tidal pools yet to be traversed to save his 
 option on the lands beyond Isle Bonne. "I m going 
 to beat it out front to-day and get the new fittin s in 
 N Awlyns. Two weeks gone out of our sixteen, 
 Doctor Dick. Coin to be close work." 
 
 176
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 177 
 
 He was silent again, calculating his precious time 
 and resources, without thought of our bruises or his 
 own. The far margins of the salt prairie were 
 smoking yet, little wisps of brown trailing up 
 through the hot morning stillness. The woods of 
 the chcniere to the north showed no sign of life. I 
 was minded to tell him of what I had discovered, 
 the camp of the black renegades about the mysteri 
 ous wreck in the edge of the forest, and then, some 
 how, Laure s mute white face as she sat under the 
 awning of the launch withheld me. Her eyes had 
 appealed to me, I knew; and I kept a treasonable 
 silence. 
 
 She had spoken but once and that was when the 
 others were on the dredge looking over the damage. 
 
 "Am I a prisoner here ?" she said faintly. "What 
 will he do? What does he think?" 
 
 "He thinks you tried to ruin him; he thinks you 
 even would do it unfairly and that is what hurts 
 him horribly." 
 
 "Hurts him?" She started. "Why, that? It is I 
 who suffer !" 
 
 "You would not deny that you were in this plot 
 to burn him out." 
 
 "Ah, no I did not know that there were men 
 in danger!"
 
 178 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "But his machine everything he has staked his 
 work his pledge and honor on you were willing 
 to wreck it." 
 
 "Ah, as to that, he and his machine have not re 
 garded me they have gone on brutally for a year, 
 without waiting for the law, so sure he was of beat 
 ing me." 
 
 "Yes he is quite sure. And I I am a director 
 in his corporation, mademoiselle." 
 
 She was staring at me in fear. "I did not know 
 that. Messieur le Baron said: Ah, the doctor, he 
 is a gentleman, a man of feeling and of sympathy. 
 His heart is not with the mud-diggers ! 
 
 "Ah, but my money is! And in this world, my 
 dear," I sighed; I was sick of the affair. "Well, you 
 had better not trifle with this man from Texas in 
 the end he will win." 
 
 She lifted herself higher on the seat to look at 
 him upon his black leviathan: "He frightens me! 
 That is why I I pretend !" 
 
 "To what?" I retorted, and she was pale and still. 
 Then she went on subduedly : "You will not tell him 
 what you saw last night. Listen, dear Doctor: it 
 was absolutely necessary that he should not discover 
 the wreck of that ship. And if his dredge went a
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 179 
 
 mile beyond, they certainly would discover it be 
 fore we we are done." 
 
 "Why are you digging out your grand-uncle s old 
 slaver what has that to do with it all?" 
 
 "It is the baron," she murmured. "He is a man 
 of ideas, but he laughs and will not tell me all." 
 
 "He is a proper lord for John-the-Fool," I said. 
 "I don t believe Virgil would bother about his dig 
 ging, if that was all." 
 
 "It is not all," she cried. And then stared at her 
 enemy who was coming along the embankment with 
 his grimy engineer. Williams looked down upon 
 her, small, resigned, trapped, but hostile; her eyes 
 upon him now defiantly, as if challenging him to do 
 his will ; she would not beg a truce of him, or a fa 
 vor, even so much as a glass of water in her deathly 
 illness from the shock of his dynamite. It was Clell 
 who ministered to her, brought her coffee after 
 Mangy, our scared cook, had been retrieved from 
 the marsh where he and the colored roustabout of 
 the dredge had taken refuge. From the first Virgil 
 had been absorbed in his machine ; even now he dis 
 missed her laconically. 
 
 "Take her around to Prosper s," he said to Big 
 Jim; "say to the baron it was a fine pawty, thank
 
 180 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 you. Give him our compliments, and say that any 
 one of his niggers who sticks his head out of the 
 grass within fou hundred yards of our ditch is a 
 dead nigger. We work with side-arms afteh this." 
 Then he turned to Laure in her draggled gown that 
 had seen the ball of Comus. "You see we re diggin 
 the ditch. We cain t stop to go man-huntin in the 
 deep swamp othe wise we d be some mean to you 
 people. You go now I know now what to ex- 
 paict." 
 
 And his smile suddenly came, the old serene, self- 
 assuring smile. "You see, I m that kind of fel-lo I 
 fight fair. When I win, then I ll come to you and 
 tell you what it means to me." 
 
 He sent her away with a brief order to the en- 
 gineman to return at once for the trip to the city 
 seventy-five miles to the north. She went stonily, 
 without appeal or evasion; he could think what he 
 pleased of her. Clell and I watched the issue in si 
 lence. The white launch sped back through the 
 blackened prairie ; and the boss turned into his hot, 
 steamy engine-room to nurse, with the solicitude of 
 a father, his loved and wounded beast of a machine. 
 
 I had an acute sense of outrage suddenly at him 
 and the whole dogged business. Clell had stood
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 181 
 
 silently by under the boss peremptoriness, grimly 
 watching the other. It was as if they had waited 
 for something, each in the other, that could be in 
 terpreted as weakness. 
 
 "She saved your life," I burst out hotly, "and for 
 it got not even thanks!" 
 
 The Texan looked up from his broken gear. 
 "Which?" And his eyes rested a moment on the 
 other man. 
 
 "If you had seen her last night, fighting, crying 
 her way through Isle Bonne swamps to get here 
 first to take her chance of destroying the dynamite 
 scow before you had the madness to touch it you 
 would have known. And the way she stood up and 
 clipped that stuff with bullet after bullet, taking her 
 chance with the explosion, to save you 
 
 "I reckon it will do her good to think it oveh." 
 
 "You treated her infamously." 
 
 His smile came again. "All right. I m playin my 
 game !" 
 
 The younger man listened; in his face of late had 
 come something of the master s hardness, the brown 
 clear skin lined deeper with what I had thought dis 
 dain, but now I wondered if it were not a joy of bat 
 tle something like Virgil s own. Incessantly they
 
 1 82 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 had watched, yet evaded each other; the place was 
 an armed camp, but I, the onlooker, found it in 
 tolerable. 
 
 I got up and paced the floor. "The devil with 
 you both! I wish I had gone to Europe. I wish 
 I had never volunteered for this, even for Mary. 
 I wrote her so. I wash my hands of the affair it 
 is insufferable for a man of feeling and refinement. 
 What do you fellows mean !" 
 
 They looked at me, and then at each other si 
 lently. The Texan arose and wiped the engine oil 
 from his hands. Neither would answer. 
 
 "If this is all it comes to, you have failed," I 
 went on. "You have made an abomination a thing 
 that will make your souls hateful." 
 
 My bronzed young friend looked clearly at me. 
 And still he would not speak. 
 
 "I expaict my soul is mine," the Texan put in 
 dryly, "and his is his." Then he turned his steady 
 eyes upon the younger man. "I got another ordeh 
 the last mail, from the boa d, to lay up the dredge 
 and paint and coveh and abandon the option on 
 that land beyond Isle Bonne. The boa d is nervous 
 again about that suit. I m goin to town now and 
 I ll wire em to go plum to hell. I m runnin this 
 now, and this is the free state o Barataria, and it
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 183 
 
 will take a bunch of gunmen to stop this work di 
 rectors or no directors. I cain t stop fo a woman, 
 either. It s the last gamble now. The hurricane 
 months are comin and the heat and lonesomeness, 
 and bad water and short grub, maybe. Big Jim and 
 me will go out and take the rousty with us. That 
 leaves Mangy, the cook, and you Redfield?" He 
 looked patiently at the other man. "Hate me all you 
 want but are you go in to stay on the job ?" 
 
 "I m going to stay on the job." 
 
 "Trie s two guns in the bunk-house," went on the 
 boss irrelevantly. "The .303 automatic and the buck 
 shot gun. Cut loose at anybody that comes near 
 don t let the swamp niggers do any of this voodoo 
 foolishness with Mangy and scare him off." Then 
 he looked again seriously at his helper. "See here 
 last night this girl tried to get you to quit me, didn t 
 she?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The Texan s smile came. "Well, damn you ! Hate 
 me, man I m goin out front to-day." 
 
 He turned to his packing in the forlorn bunk- 
 house. When Big Jim returned from Prosper s 
 they loaded some broken gears and pipe into the 
 launch and set off on the seventy-five miles to the 
 city. They would have to send east for the parts
 
 1 84 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 and it would take ten days at best. Meantime Virgil 
 would try to hire a crew for the night shift. 
 
 Big Jim had a pithy story to relate. "She cried," 
 he said, "when we got clear of the canal and turned 
 north into the lake she looked back yere and then 
 at the big woods on Isle Bonne, and cried. I let 
 her cut loose all the way to Prosper s damned if 
 I d sympathize." 
 
 But the boss looked thoughtful. Slowly the thing 
 was getting to him. When he left he turned aside 
 to me, as if to ease his spirit for a moment 
 
 "I reckon you ve gone over, Doctor. All right 
 I ain t askin you none. You know what I told you 
 about Laure once. I come as close to lovin her as 
 I want, but she cain t beat me that s all. Only, 
 somehow, with you-all, I have to stand fo a good 
 deal." 
 
 We watched the launch slip to the vanishing point 
 of the canal behind us. To the dim blue wall of 
 the forest northward, stretched the fire-riven prairie 
 cane. A crow was calling lonesomely in the first 
 of the dead cypress. Mangy, the cook, put his head 
 out of the kitchen. 
 
 "It sho gwine ter be a bad ten days yere, Misteh 
 Redfield. Ah tell yo befo dey s nothin but evil 
 gwine ter come outen all dis diggin . Yes, seh
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 185 
 
 dem ole pirate folkses, cley done laid a curse on dis 
 island and den mah black people laid a curse on it, 
 fo ole Armand Drouillot, he drowned ninety slaves 
 here once to keep de gove ment from cotchin em." 
 
 We sent Mangy back to his work with some hard 
 words. The face of failure was enough to stare at 
 without his African superstition. I knew Clell 
 wanted me to stay with him at the dredge, but I 
 had a feeling that he would resent my offer to do 
 so. Besides I had a curiosity as to how the baron 
 would explain the palpable work of his renegades 
 and their failure. 
 
 Clell and I sat down to a silent supper in the cook 
 house. Mangy shuffled in and out with his thick 
 plates and cups over the creaking floor below which 
 we heard the bilge water swash against the bulk 
 heads. The mosquito hour had come, and our 
 screened doors were gray with the humming horde 
 against the last golden splash of the sunset. The 
 "mosquito wind" off the dread La Fourche delta 
 had blown all day. To stay outdoors was quite im 
 possible. 
 
 "You can t get back to the baron s very well," 
 observed Clell, "unless you wait till the mosquitoes 
 quit this evening rush. All the same, Doctor Dick, 
 I don t want you here. To stay all night, that is."
 
 1 86 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I stared at him somewhat incredulously; I Had 
 supposed that was what he secretly wanted but 
 would not ask. "Why?" I muttered. 
 
 He raised his bronzed bare arm with a great ges 
 ture out to the scourge-ridden marsh and sky. 
 
 "Because I want to face it. I even wish the nig 
 ger was gone." 
 
 "Boy, what are you talking about?" 
 
 He was laughing now. "Oh, you won t under 
 stand. The thing s got me that s all. That fellow 
 Williams damn him ! I just want to stand in his 
 shoes a day and night and face it the big failure. 
 I ve made it pretty mean for him so s everything 
 else. He stood the gaff he s standing it now. He 
 went off without a word, leaving his plant in my 
 charge and he knows I hate him and could ruin 
 him. Why, damn him it s big !" 
 
 I looked at Clell silently. 
 
 "I could throw a monkey-wrench into some of 
 his gear," he went on evenly, "and ruin him. Or a 
 match into this oil waste." He rubbed his hard 
 hands. "Look, Doctor Dick. Three months ago 
 I was a lackey for a ten-million dollar trust and 
 never could get close enough to a man in it to know 
 whether he was real or not. A big real man. That s
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 187 
 
 the fine thing down here. Things count. You can 
 hate big or love " 
 
 He checked himself and his gaze grew long out 
 of Mangy s sodden window at the splendor of that 
 sky. "I was hoping he d fail just as I d known 
 failure. If I d have seen a square way to ditch him 
 I d have done it. The city had screwed me up that 
 way to a hating tension. Why, I was sore because 
 I couldn t get married on a dinky twenty-five a week 
 and stick at a dog-trot for the Amalgamated Elec 
 tric the rest of my life!" He laughed sheepishly. 
 "Married!" 
 
 "Well," I said placidly, "there is not a deal in 
 marriage that should interfere with one s happi 
 ness. But one must be the right sort to put up with 
 it. You didn t surprise me, boy I knew you had 
 the stuff in you. But it s funny this thing is put up 
 to you. Maybe you don t know how we are fixed 
 both Mary and myself to say nothing of a lot 
 more. I ve got absolutely every dollar I possess 
 sunk into Virgil s infernal land scheme. And 
 Mary" 
 
 "Doctor Dick !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "It s true. Mary and I well, everything else 
 failed Virgil the last two months. Besides what I
 
 1 88 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 had in before and all Mary s little fortune and 
 she s always put by a few thousand a year I ve 
 cleared out of everything to keep this concern afloat. 
 I hate to confess I m a fool. The baron is right 
 only he doesn t know I m a stockholder in Isle 
 Bonne, or he d challenge me again. I well, con 
 found you, boy you re righting for Mary and me, 
 after all," I listened to Mangy scraping his last ket 
 tle for the night. "I believe on my soul we re all 
 cleaned out. Only this fellow Virgil somehow, 
 you can t help trusting him." 
 
 "Yes," Clell muttered, "that s what bothered me 
 so long ! I didn t want to. And now " 
 
 "You see?" 
 
 "I roughed it a bit with him, I imagine. He s 
 pretty square. His old affair with Mary and then 
 I came into her life. He got over that, and now 
 he s picking up the man s load for us despite it all." 
 
 "See here," I retorted, "you say you hate him?" 
 
 "Yes." He made a grand flourish off to the 
 outer world. "It s as great as love. I like the fel 
 low s game, you see. He he s smashed something 
 out of me some littleness, some failure, some bit 
 terness. Mary s crowd with their patter of cults 
 and movements and uplifts very fine, only I never 
 was able to get under any man s skin. Then along
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 189 
 
 came Williams, and he hurt me down deep. Per 
 haps he saw I I had failed with Mary and 
 everything perhaps he threw the iron into me pur 
 posely sometimes I wonder? Oh, I couldn t bear 
 his smile that night pleasantly tolerant of us all ! 
 I didn t know he himself was backed into a ditch and 
 fighting, too. He was the creator, fighting the sea 
 back from a hundred thousand acres of the earth 
 for other human beings to live on. I see now why 
 he used to look on Mary s culture crowd as merely 
 children and me as a whimperer who imagined he 
 was licked to begin with. Why, damn him, he 
 shoved me into this, and the rougher it got, the more 
 he smiled." 
 
 I could hardly conceal my wonder at him. "For 
 Mary s sake," I murmured, and he looked quickly at 
 me and shook his head. 
 
 "I m all over that. I was jealous of him but 
 that s gone. Mary s free. I don t even care any 
 more. I made good, you see; and Williams will 
 have to see it. He he s got to see it!" 
 
 I listened to the boy s desperate joy; he would 
 wring this out of Williams in the end, the man s 
 tribute to a man. I began to understand now. 
 Only I thought of Mary s letters to me; a trifle 
 wistful, a bit lonely. I had been commanded not
 
 190 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 to show them to Clell, or mention her. I must 
 let him forget if he would. But she wrote me: 
 "You speak of the way Clell is making good in 
 that wilderness dear Dick, the wilderness is here 
 with me!" I was surprised at Mary. I had not 
 thought she cared except in her superior fashion. 
 She had an exasperating way of being always 
 "right." That was what drove Clell away from 
 her undoubtedly. 
 
 "See here," I put in on his exalted mood. "You 
 said this island girl had tried to win you away 
 from Virgil and the work here?" 
 
 "Well," he retorted, "can you blame her?" 
 
 "Not exactly. Only she can t be allowed to 
 wreck things." 
 
 "No," he answered. "I told her that. It s queer 
 how I stood up for Williams. She knows I hate 
 him not exactly why, but she guesses. She s pret 
 ty keen, Doctor. She isn t exactly the wild crea 
 ture we supposed." 
 
 "Not at all. Blood will tell, the baron insists, 
 and her line of adventuring ancestors were not 
 fools, from all I understand. She can even speak 
 decent English when she wishes; and with a gun 
 well you ought to see her." 
 
 "And her eyes did you ever notice?"
 
 THE HATE OF MEN 191 
 
 I watched him for some time, and he was serious. 
 
 "I suppose you ve guessed," I went on at length, 
 "that Virgil loved her." 
 
 "Yes. He stood that, too, from me. His hands 
 are tied he can t make a move to defend himself 
 with her. When the smash comes, and she loses 
 her island, he will only be in worse. And here I am 
 standing by, waiting. And the girl is desperately 
 turning for help somewhere. You see old Prosper s 
 at the end of his string. He s had a couple of old 
 Creole lawyers fighting his case all these years, and 
 every now and then he d mortgage a parcel of his 
 land holdings to pay expenses. But now they see 
 he ll lose, and they ll make trouble on the mortgages. 
 And there sits Prosper and stirs his coffee it s 
 Laure that has to face matters. And her pride her 
 great pride will be crushed when Virgil beats her 
 she ll never listen to him then." The boy mut 
 tered aside a moment : "But I I m here to help her 
 at the finish only only " 
 
 "Only what?" I retorted. 
 
 "Only Williams. The fellow, you see, makes 
 you want to play square with yourself. He s forever 
 putting it up to me to make good with myself." 
 
 "About the size," I answered, "of a man s size 
 job, isn t it ?"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 
 
 1 PADDLED my johnboat back up the shadowy 
 water lane at midnight to the baron s as Clell 
 had insisted. The boy, indeed, wished to face it 
 alone. He, I saw, was playing a great game with 
 himself, with his enemy, his love, the sky, the sea, 
 the open he was telling himself that he was a man 
 and equal to things. A trifle Quixotic just now but 
 sturdy, with the leap of new life and discovering 
 youth. It was a great thing to saw him across such 
 tough metal as Virgil Williams, I told myself. Mary 
 was right, after all, to let them go. Mary, up there 
 in the city that she had come to call her wilderness. 
 When I turned into the forest glade out of the 
 saw-grass marsh a dim light was burning against the 
 black woods of John-the-Fool. I drew up along 
 the platform by the baron s house. The doughty 
 beggar himself waved a vast arm from his red 
 robe as he sat just within the door. 
 
 192
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 193 
 
 "It is late for you, my good Doctor," he began 
 casually, as if nothing at all had happened in the 
 last thirty hours. 
 
 "And most late for you to sit up and alone, my 
 good Baron," I answered. 
 
 "Alone? Not at all." He motioned to the low 
 table by his chair and I saw an array of bottles 
 and a hapless cake of ice melting in the midnight 
 semitropic warmth. "Here sit I and the excellent 
 beer. It is a treat, I assure you. Allesjandro 
 brought a Case and the ice from some La Fourche 
 camp. Your glass, Doctor. I awaited you pa 
 tiently. Beer at John-the-Fool is an event. Here 
 I have sat and chased the puling universe down 
 to a pin-hole, looked at it clearly and extended 
 my congratulations to the Almighty. It is not a bad 
 job for presumably His first attempt at creation. I 
 am not altogether displeased, though He might have 
 dispensed with the mosquitoes. I had my fling at it, 
 my good Doctor." He chuckled out of his prodi 
 gious depths. "I thought it all over to-night the 
 great past of it, and what must come. I slapped 
 the map of Europe together in half a dozen combi 
 nations; I put kings up here, and dynasties down 
 there, and ran races over races and claptrap repub-
 
 194 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 lies to the junk-heap. Eh, the mind I have if I but 
 had legs to match it! Napoleon was a dolt beside 
 me." 
 
 "By the bottles here, and empty, I must say you 
 undoubtedly scourged half the world." 
 
 "Ah, you have it! Nine, Doctor and he who 
 can not build his empire on nine beers will never do 
 it on more." He pulled on his pipe again until the 
 bowl of it lighted half his shack. He sighed. "And 
 now I sit at the edge of our isle and quarrel with 
 you Yankees over a ditch of mud. Still, the great 
 soul must have its quarrel life would dry up for 
 me overnight if I had nothing to scheme against 
 no cause to espouse, no sentiment to cherish, no love 
 to exalt. Your infernal dredge is over-muddy for 
 a clean man to combat, but it is better than drooling 
 away in a chimney corner." 
 
 "You made an excellent mess of your warfare 
 last night, my dear Baron. To set your thieving 
 blacks to fire the marsh while we were at your 
 party was not Napoleonic." 
 
 He grinned with the humor of a gargoyle under 
 his great brows. 
 
 "I have had my first quarrel with my marquise 
 over that" 
 
 "She did not know, then ?"
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 195 
 
 "The devil no ! That is what the consequence 
 might have been. You observe how she fled to stop 
 it when she found your men were bound to walk 
 into the pit of hell. Still, confound her conscience, 
 we would have burned you out, if she had not had 
 the wit to blow up your powder boat prematurely. 
 To save their hides that s the woman of it!" 
 
 "You confess to it easily," I murmured, wiping 
 his beer from my mustache. 
 
 "To you, my dear Doctor. You are an arbiter 
 as it were. A man of honor, of delicacy even of 
 chivalry." 
 
 "U-um," I murmured, and began casually to esti 
 mate just how deep I had gone, the last three 
 months, as a stockholder into Virgil s Isle Bonne 
 swamp lands company which this unsuspecting old 
 cock would ruin if he could. Let him hang himself 
 If he will, I thought; and then put a question to 
 him abruptly. 
 
 "My dear Baron, why do you so fear the dis 
 covery of that ancient wreck of a schooner lying 
 there in the edge of the deep swamp?" 
 
 He started with equal abruptness. "Of course," 
 I went on indifferently, as if I knew all about it 
 and cared less: "it s interesting as a relic, to our 
 young friend of Isle Bonne this sunken slave run-
 
 196 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ner of her great grand-uncle, Armand. Undoubt 
 edly, you ought to dig it out ; but why this secrecy ? 
 Mr. Williams, I assure you, would let your black 
 men pump the hulk dry while his dredge worked 
 peacefully past it. He has a mind that jconsiders 
 little back of last year s hurricane. And if it s 
 really a piratical hull of Lafitte s day, and you 
 expect to find treasure, as all the cajuns do good! 
 Mr. Williams would pronounce it very interesting, 
 but he wouldn t stop his dredge even to cast an 
 eye at it." 
 
 The old fellow nudged forward in his chair and 
 tapped me with his pipe bowl. "He might well. 
 There is a possibility " then his brows contracted ; 
 his old eyes shone, his usual fat grimace came: 
 "Well, let the fool dig he s wasting an amazing 
 amount of some one s money." 
 
 "Just what," I retorted, "do you mean ?" 
 
 But the Baron John waddled up and away in his 
 red robe, stopping however although it was now 
 two in the morning to wind his execrable phono 
 graph so that it was now bawling out La Favorita 
 on the peaceful air. Once in bed he kept the time 
 with his pipe as usual. 
 
 I retired quite disgusted at his utter frankness 
 about his criminal schemes. He took me for grant-
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 197 
 
 ed. He was ever irritatingly sure of himself like 
 an excellent card-player who can play fair and 
 win, or nonchalantly stack the cards and lose, but 
 fair or foul, remain equally composed, knowing that 
 he has the odds against you in the end. 
 
 I promised myself that I would clear out of his 
 lodge this week. The listening to all this posing 
 and boasting, and then knowing the grim battle our 
 fellows were having to keep the dredge at work, 
 was getting on my nerves. I hadn t taken the ba 
 ron s feud seriously before, and as for Papa Pros- 
 per s case in court against the transfer of Isle Bonne 
 by the French heirs, why there was no chance for 
 us to lose. It was hanging on to Virgil s option on 
 the swamp beyond that was racking us all ; to make 
 it good he must complete his dredge contract. 
 
 But the next morning a deal of this resolve had 
 gone. Laure of Isle Bonne had come over, as usual, 
 bringing the greater part of that old scoundrel s 
 breakfast. When his man Friday was absent, our 
 saint of the woods was much taken with looking 
 after the baron s household. She was rather dis 
 trait this morning and greeted me with a pallid 
 composure that led me to think she was not over 
 her unnerving shock of two nights ago. There was 
 a wound against her throat where bits of the debris
 
 198 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 from Virgil s dynamite boat had struck her. She 
 smiled over the baron s coffee. The old fellow 
 was rather morose; I gathered that his beer had 
 been a trifle green. When I happened to mention 
 casually, that Williams had gone to the city they 
 both started curiously. 
 
 "Then who is there?" asked Laure abruptly. 
 
 "Mr. Redfield and the cook," I answered. "And 
 I shall keep him company." 
 
 They looked significantly at each other. Perhaps 
 I had been a guest quite long enough. But it was 
 not of that Laure was thinking. 
 
 I came upon her out on the platform looking off 
 at the canal leading westward from the cove in 
 the forest. One could make out a thin trail of 
 smoke from the dredge stacks two miles away over 
 the shimmer of marsh. And her study suddenly 
 provoked me to boldness; it was always the most 
 effective with our small enemy to startle her off her 
 guard. 
 
 "See here, mademoiselle," I began, "ever since I 
 told you my friend was alone there, you have 
 seemed in a mood. Now, I warn you not to attempt 
 any advantage of that." 
 
 She laughed outright; the first of that moody 
 morning. "I, messieur? For what should I harm
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 199 
 
 that kind young man! He is my friend all that 
 he can be." 
 
 "That may be in the sense that I am. All 
 the same, we don t trust you. We know now, what 
 you tried." 
 
 "I want to save my island." 
 
 "That s no way to do it. You might ruin Will 
 iams some way or other but your isle is in the 
 hands of the court. And " I added deliberately, 
 "the case comes up this week for a last hearing on 
 appeal." 
 
 She threw up her hands in utter anguish. I knew 
 then what was torturing her. It shot over her ex 
 pressive face, wave on wave of fear, grief, doubt 
 and hatred for us all. "I knew, also," she mur 
 mured. "Ah, we were desperate. There is no one 
 at home who cares. Papa Prosper, what does he do ? 
 Nothing! Stir his cafe au lait and say: Mebbe 
 mebbe, this or that. Mebbe he get rich like a mil 
 lionaire and then Isle Bonne? Who care? Ah, I 
 fled from it all and came to the baron! He is 
 one man who can fight you!" 
 
 The Baron John Bernal De Vedrinnes was in 
 specting a patent tip from one of his nine bottles; 
 he sighed lugubriously the beer had been too un 
 ripe by far, for empire-building.
 
 200 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Why fight us, my dear young lady? You are 
 perfectly mad. Your whole scheme is absurd. Laws, 
 courts, injunctions evictions records all that 
 sort of thing is the way men fight nowadays. Why 
 plots and poniards and all that? The Baron is 
 daft. Who are your attorneys in the city ?" 
 
 "Ah, mon Dieu I don t know! What for I 
 know lawyers ? The baron, he say " 
 
 "You poor child " began I, in real commiser 
 ation, forgetting our dilemma in her own. Then 
 she turned angrily on me. "I wish I had let it 
 blow up!" 
 
 "But you didn t. You mercifully and courageous 
 ly let Mr. Williams live to work another day." 
 
 "Do not mention him!" 
 
 "He s gone to the city and he ll bring men and 
 machines more than ever," I retorted. Then con 
 tinued placidly: "Why don t you come over and 
 look at his diabolical machine that you hate so 
 well?" 
 
 She looked long at it. "Very well. I never have 
 been near it. It s a monster, tearing the heart out 
 of my beautiful forest. We will go see." 
 
 I followed her as she stole out of the glade in 
 her running pirogue. The baron had closed his
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 201 
 
 eyes and was sighing over another bottle of his too- 
 green beer an unopened one, this time. 
 
 It was a long hot pull in that silent grass-hung 
 canal to the dredge at the end of it. We passed 
 the blackened area, and then the torn embankment 
 where the dynamite boat had gone up. The wood 
 saint laughed. "Bom! Do you remember the 
 noise, Doctor?" Then she fell silent, and I had 
 hard work keeping up with her canoe stroke, so 
 sure, so easy, so elusive the quick strength with 
 which she drew the pirogue through the water. 
 We drew up at the greasy deck of the dredge. 
 Clell was testing some lubricants in the engine- 
 room and did not see us until Laure darkened the 
 door. Then he gasped his amazement. He extended 
 a grimy hand. 
 
 "It is honest dirt on there," he said smilingly. 
 
 "But mine from off my isle, messieur. I sup 
 pose you will make a pretty speech now, and say 
 I can have it back with the hand." She turned 
 to look up in the black space around the drums and 
 boilers, and her assurance seemed going. She was 
 in the enemy s camp, and it spoke grim power and 
 brute purpose against her fancies. Somehow my 
 provoking sympathy for her would arise ; so I turned
 
 202 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 into the hot little office and pretended to be ab 
 sorbed in the blue-prints on Williams desk, leaving 
 them out on the deck among the machinery in that 
 silence of the noon swamp. 
 
 "After this," she went on slowly. "We can not 
 pretend to be friends none of us, at all. He he 
 will not trust me any more ; and I I will hate him 
 more than ever." 
 
 "You splendid little fighter ! I oh, well I wish 
 I could help you. This Williams I hated him, too, 
 Laure. Only, he wore it out, someway. I wish 
 you had never refused his compromise. It s too 
 late now, but that forty thousand dollars he made 
 the company offer you " 
 
 "Jamais jamais! No we shall go away! Mes- 
 sieur le Baron, he say we shall go to France to 
 Bordeaux and he will shake his fist at my cousin 
 there who sold out the property; we shall go to 
 Paris, to Vienna, St. Petersburg always the ba 
 ron say he shall roar and shake his fist and de 
 nounce Yankees. Messieur le Baron say, first I must 
 have a little hat, all pearls and danglets like we saw 
 in a magazine, which will make me look dangerous 
 like a Russian spy of royalty and then to Europe 
 we shall go, and never shall Messieur le Baron 
 cease to denounce Yankees and lawyers and dig 
 gers of mud."
 
 NAPOLEON OF THE NINE BEERS 203 
 
 "He is a magnificent fool, Laure." 
 
 "That is the only kind to be. It is better than 
 digging mud or talking seed catalogue for cabbages 
 like Papa Prosper. Messieur le Baron say he will 
 take me to the palace of his cousin, the Prince of 
 Thurn he say in the prince s garden there are no 
 mosquitoes like Isle Bonne." 
 
 "And no wonderful sunsets shining back from 
 the pools in the forest, and from the lakes when 
 you cross in the little green pirogue; and there will 
 be no wild garden such as Prosper s where you are 
 free. You will have many things, perhaps gowns 
 and people and sights, but you will want to come 
 back to your island some day." 
 
 "Be still," she whispered. "My island and he 
 is taking it." 
 
 The young man was silent; then he went on, 
 for she seemed stricken with grief at last, and had 
 not her usual blithe defiance: "I know. But if 
 you could see what he sees ? The Isle Bonne lands 
 again reclaimed from the sea and the homes and 
 farms on what your family abandoned long ago to 
 desolation how beautiful he would make it. I can 
 see it, Laure, and I I hated him." 
 
 "I know," she said. "That is the strange thing. 
 And you cared for me a bit and yet would not 
 help me."
 
 204 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "There was the man s game," he answered. 
 "That was the big thing." 
 
 "Ah, that is the way it goes!" She sighed, her 
 light step sounded forward, and she was unloosen 
 ing the tie-line of her green canoe. She had not 
 won him from his grudged loyalty. To me, listen 
 ing, that was the fine thing, the rugged love he was 
 finding for the chief despite himself; women were 
 well enough, but this was greater, the man s stuff, 
 in him. 
 
 I heard her speak again above the stroke of her 
 paddle : "Suppose there was danger? M sieu, would 
 you come? Could I call you?" 
 
 "From the ends of the earth ! Only, what do you 
 mean, Laure?" 
 
 The little green pirogue had slipped along in 
 the shadow of the rozo cane; she turned to look 
 back with a sad smile. 
 
 "But when it came I should have to call on one 
 who loved me !" 
 
 He watched her go, staring after her in doubt at 
 her new moods. She was admitting sorry defeat 
 after her long defiance.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 
 
 I CAME back to the idle dredge boat the next day, 
 after a rather perplexing night at the baron s. I 
 had spent it alone. It was the first time the rotund 
 knight had not awakened under his mosquito net 
 ting and bawled for Allesjandro to fetch the early 
 coffee. I wondered at this absence. Allesjandro s 
 pink and blue lugger, which had lain yesterday in 
 the cove of the flooded forest, must nave been 
 poled out the canal to the tidal lakes during the 
 night, and the master with it. Neither did Laure 
 come stealing through the Isle Bonne swamps in 
 her pirogue from the other side of the island. "That 
 proves," I reflected, "that something was planned by 
 the two. Something is up in this dolorous warfare." 
 I made my own coffee, and then put off to Will 
 iams dredge two miles in the shimmery marsh. It 
 was a fair breezy morning with the whisk of white 
 clouds up from the gulf; one could almost catch 
 the tumult of the surf on those outer reefs. 
 
 205
 
 206 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Clell hailed me from the craneman s nest up on 
 the arm of the derrick which swung idly above the 
 steel "clam-shell" digger. The first impression was 
 of his loneliness; the murky little kitchen was de 
 serted. 
 
 "Mangy s cleared out !" Clell hailed me blithely. 
 "The first night alone was too much for his nerves. 
 And I can t understand it. He came in the bunk- 
 house after I d turned in, his eyes big and white as 
 saucers and said to me : Deh gib me mah wahnin , 
 Marse Clell! No place fo a riveh niggeh hyeh. 
 I asked him what was the matter and he started to 
 tell me again that wild yarn he always relates about 
 the ghost-head which is bad for niggers. His 
 mother once landed on Isle Bonne to start a moss- 
 picking camp, and first night at supper a big old 
 hairy head came plump down on the table before 
 her. The old lady grabbed the head and threw it 
 out the door and the piccaninnies went on with their 
 supper. First thing the old ghost head was back 
 kerplump on the table. Old lady slams a frying 
 pan down on it, and yells: G way from here, yo 
 Ole Pirate Haid yo cain t f raid me out dis island ! 
 Mangy says he remembers well : Ole Pirate Haid 
 jes winks and hump eround the table, and growls
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 207 
 
 first at one piccaninny and then another, and finally 
 jumps and hit Mangy in the eye. Yes, sir, Mangy 
 remembers it all and he was only two years old. His 
 mammy jumps up and hits the Old Pirate Haid a 
 clout, and the Old Pirate Haid he jumps on the floor 
 and trips her up, and then knocks the lamp over, 
 and the camp burns up and all the niggers take to 
 their boats and beat it. They see the Old Pirate 
 Haid sitting up in the moss of a big cypress grin 
 ning at them. 
 
 "So last night, Mangy pokes his head in my room 
 and tells me he done see the Haid again. It stuck 
 itself up out of the marsh across the ditch and roll 
 its eyes at him something fierce. Mangy says he was 
 too scared to call for me; he just had a fit. I swore 
 at him and ragged him and he went into the bunk- 
 house mumbling. And this morning he was gone 
 cleared out, God knows where. Didn t take a boat, 
 and he must have plunged right off in the marsh. 
 If he did, he s a dead nigger by now." 
 
 "Maybe," I answered interestedly, "the Old Haid 
 has got him." 
 
 "I imagine only we d have heard him yell a mile. 
 The point is that Laure and the baron have got 
 another one. It s tough, Doctor Dick, for we can t
 
 208 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 live without a cook." Then he burst out laughing. 
 "I wish the old cock-fighter would spring some 
 thing like that on me !" 
 
 "He s gone, too," I answered still more inter 
 estedly, for things seemed coming to a point. "So s 
 Allesjandro s lugger, and Laure, apparently, for she 
 didn t come over with the baron s breakfast. But 
 what are you doing up there?" 
 
 "Taking another look for that fool, the cook. 
 Promised Williams I d keep him if I had to use a 
 gun. But he slipped me." 
 
 We scanned the wall of cypress along the marsh 
 where the last white dead trunk standing out in the 
 salt pools marked the retreat of the forest before 
 the encroaching gulf. And while we were discuss 
 ing the matter and the superstitions of the deep 
 swamp blacks concerning the slave runners island, 
 there came somewhere off on the stillness the dis 
 tinct boom of an explosion. We stopped dead in 
 our tracks, the sound was so clear cut in that hot 
 morning air. 
 
 And then Clell raised his hand. "There do 
 you see?" 
 
 I marked a faint brown haze against the distant 
 woods, a mere patch on the blue wall, but at once 
 I noted that it lay fair upon the spot where Armand
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 209 
 
 Drouillot s slave ship had broken herself in the fif 
 ties. We heard the rumble dying away in the re 
 cesses of Isle Bonne. 
 
 Clell had come to me excitedly. "Do you recall 
 what Laure said last night? of danger!" 
 
 "Yes. Only this. Well, there is something I 
 haven t told you." 
 
 "Inside?" He motioned to the island. "You 
 haven t told us!" 
 
 "Well, I didn t want to spin any yarn about a 
 sunken treasure ship of Jean Lafitte, and have it 
 turn out to be a Barataria oyster boat come ashore 
 over the marshes on some tidal wave. But there is 
 a wreck in there, with three of the baron s outlaw 
 niggers working at it. They have been the ones 
 who scared Virgil s niggers away, and now they ve 
 got Mangy undoubtedly." 
 
 "Digging? For what?" 
 
 "How can I tell? I never mentioned it. Virgil 
 would smile at that sort of a yarn. Only Laure 
 knows it belongs to one of her slave-running ances 
 tors. And they re digging in it that s why they ve 
 tried to obstruct the dredge, only I can t quite see 
 the use of it." 
 
 My young friend was staring at me. "And you 
 never told me ! The baron he s back of it."
 
 210 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Exactly. I ve heard him boast of it. As it s 
 a harmless diversion, I didn t bother. And now I 
 think likely they ve blown it up." 
 
 Clell ran his fingers through his hair worriedly. 
 "See here we ought to look into that. There 
 might be something in it." 
 
 "There is mud and shells. The old hulk was 
 burned to the water s edge apparently and filled with 
 stuff by the storms. I put down the affair as another 
 bombastic hallucination of Baron John s he was 
 always winking an eye at me over some mysterious 
 trick or other." 
 
 "But Laure " Clell went on. "I think we ought 
 to know. She was sad enough last night. She 
 appealed almost appealed to me for help, at least, I 
 fancied so." 
 
 "What can we do particularly?" 
 
 "Go in to-night. I am enough of a swamper now. 
 We can take the small launch and go around by 
 Bayou L Ourse Big Jim and I scouted out a 
 channel one Sunday that leads in deep." 
 
 "You ll never make it," I retorted. "And they re 
 bad niggers." 
 
 "That s just it. What should she be doing lead 
 ing a gang like Hogjaw and Doc Crump? The 
 baron would be a joke in protecting her. I be-
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 211 
 
 lieve now, she needed us and was too proud to ask 
 of her enemies." 
 
 I thought as much. And I wondered at dell s 
 ardor and more at his initiative. He had come to 
 a new marauding manhood of late ; and I wondered 
 also, if he loved the girl? There was Mary but 
 then, with men, love is a curious thing. I have 
 seen it wrecked by an underdone pie and a neuras 
 thenic stomach. There is one s soul, of course, but 
 then women have never proved their Contention 
 as to that and love. 
 
 So I assented. Clell would have gone in alone. 
 We talked over a number of ways to penetrate the 
 swamp island. Bayou L Ourse was an unmarked 
 channel winding in from the shallow inner reaches 
 of the tidal lakes through the swamp isle, which 
 scattered itself in numberless reedy pools and cy 
 press-spiked sloughs and finally reached the outlying 
 marshes somewhere near the place where we thought 
 the old hulk lay. We determined to go in from 
 that side, though it meant a detour of many miles. 
 Directly across from us to the forest edge the 
 flottant was impassable, a bottomless mire hedged 
 over with a thin crust of grassy peat over which a 
 man could not walk and through which he could 
 not paddle.
 
 212 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I questioned the expediency of leaving the dredge 
 unguarded. Many eyes might be watching us from 
 the forest rim. 
 
 "That is exactly what we want," retorted Clell, 
 "they will never dream that we would leave the 
 big machine unprotected after what happened. And 
 if they have a lookout lest we spy on them, he 
 will merely watch the canal and marsh." 
 
 That seemed true enough. So we got away at 
 sunset down the long hot canal which was a rib 
 bon of red and yellow in the bordering green. We 
 stole past the cove of John-the-Fool with some 
 trepidation, but the pool in the forest was silent 
 The white bar at the baron s bed fluttered idly in 
 the doorway. Not even the lone dog was upon the 
 platform, and Allesjandro s lugger had not returned 
 from the lakes. The silence, the sense of expectant 
 desertion was mysterious. I had never known the 
 old fellow to be away a night since my vagabond 
 sojourn with him. 
 
 We rowed the small motor skiff for miles past 
 Isle Bonne woods so that the sound of the engine 
 would not attract the enemy. It was thick dark 
 when we passed Virgil s forlorn site for his pump 
 ing plant. On the black earth space lay his piles 
 of lumber, the cement slowly changing to stone
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 213 
 
 under the flimsy corrugated sheds, the costly pumps 
 and turbines under the hastily constructed shelters 
 he had been able to improvise when the order to quit 
 the construction had come last autumn. Clell stood 
 up and sighed in the starlight as he poled past the 
 dim ghost of failure. 
 
 "The old chief," he murmured, "I guess it is 
 tough. Whichever way he looks from that dredge 
 arm, forward or back, he sees something that ought 
 to be done and he helpless to do it. Only the 
 dredge he fought onward personal and specified 
 and now it s blocked. How many weeks has he to 
 complete the ditch in ?" 
 
 "Nine, I should imagine if he could start right 
 off. He told me it was a forty-foot cut to the big 
 cypress and then thirty after the turn for the outer 
 reef. It must be five miles or so but it will be bet 
 ter going when he gets away from the forest edge 
 into softer stuff." 
 
 "He ll never make it," Clell muttered : "This last 
 delay when they broke his machine will be his 
 finish, Doctor Dick." 
 
 "Well," I retorted, with some philosophy, "then 
 your Uncle Richard will begin again to sell medi 
 cine on the road that s what this imbecility has 
 done to me. And Mary s little money well, now
 
 214 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 I see why Virgil s eyes seem haunted of late. I 
 thought it was Laure." 
 
 Clell mused idly over the oars. "Do you sup 
 pose he cares that much ?" 
 
 I disliked to bring that matter up. The two had 
 ennobled the hate that they had brought to the 
 south woods by a common danger and a common 
 loyalty. It was a shame if two such fellows faced 
 again across the gulf which their manhood had 
 slowly bridged. 
 
 "He gave up much for you," I muttered shortly. 
 "And now well, it seems that there is nothing for 
 him except to go on earning the hatred of the girl 
 he loves. And you allowing you to stand by and 
 profit by it all. Still, he says nothing fights on as 
 grim as his black monster of a machine that is eat 
 ing the heart out of her island. I wonder at him." 
 
 "I wonder what he would do if he were free 
 if he hadn t brought your money, Doctor Dick; 
 and Mary s money and all the stockholders money 
 into the scheme ? He s got to ruin you all, it seems 
 or ruin Laure and her island. Do you suppose 
 the girl sees it that way?" 
 
 "A lot she would care! The company is a Yan 
 kee abomination to her. She doesn t want the land
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 215 
 
 reclaimed, nor a furrow turned nor a house built 
 she wishes her wilderness to go on as it is." 
 
 "That is the beautiful thing about her," Clell re 
 torted. "She loves it so ! And as far as this gabby 
 old guy of a baron is concerned she doesn t take 
 much stock in him, I fancy. He puzzles her, that s 
 all naturally, too, with his ranting about dukes 
 and flunkies, fortunes and family trees. What girl 
 wouldn t be interested?" 
 
 "She believes him implicitly." 
 
 "Get out!" Clell answered. "She s too much 
 sense. He contributes to her play-world, and a very 
 fine play-world for a child who had nothing to 
 dream of except Isle Bonne. He s created a real 
 mimic war for her, and made himself the succoring 
 knight. It s bully, but it can t last." 
 
 "And after the baron, you expect to be her 
 knight, I suppose?" 
 
 He laughed light-heartedly. "I m waiting for the 
 smash-up. And my freedom from Williams. Then 
 well, all through Williams has been pretty square ; 
 so, I must be, also, Doctor Dick !" 
 
 And that was what I loved in him. It sweetened 
 one s pipe, and made the mosquitoes less annoying. 
 
 We got out of the long miles of canal at last
 
 216 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 and the launch lay in the star-smitten waters of 
 the lake. The engine gave some trouble and it was 
 ten o clock when we got up along the dim shore 
 toward Isle Bonne. After a while one saw the 
 white shell ridges under the oak fringe, and then 
 the cheniere the higher bit of land on which was 
 Prosper s house. It had been a week since we were 
 there at the ill-fated island ball. I wondered what 
 Papa thought of it all as I stood on that narrow 
 border between lake and jungle in the clumps of 
 Spanish bayonet. Clell was wading and stumbling 
 among the cypress spikes; at length he called im 
 patiently that we must have come too far and passed 
 the mouth of the inlet to the swamp. 
 
 And at his voice I heard a laugh. It was near, 
 so near that I involuntarily stooped to scan the 
 beach, and then I saw a figure against the starlight. 
 Slender, evasive, then it moved and I knew it was 
 no man. She came closer intently, and I reached out 
 a hand from the bayonet clumps and touched Laure. 
 She started with an exclamation; then seemed to 
 recognize me. 
 
 "M sieu! Yes it must be you I saw you a 
 moment ago!" 
 
 "What are you doing here? " I murmured. 
 
 "Merely well, spying on you."
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 217 
 
 "I imagine." 
 
 She looked at Clell intently, then whispered. 
 "You must not try this going in the deep swamp, 
 Messieur le Doctor. Things are bad bad and you 
 could not find your trail, anyway." 
 
 "He will try at least." I indicated my angry 
 young friend in the cypress, now sinking and twist 
 ing at the beginning of the morass. 
 
 She laughed again softly. "No, he will not. I 
 have stolen your boat." 
 
 "Laurel" 
 
 She was moving away from me as if fearing 
 capture. "So that you can t get in. It must not 
 be it is dangerous. The black men, they they are 
 angry." 
 
 "At you and the baron ?" 
 
 "At every one. They thought well, I can not tell 
 you. Only you must not go. I followed to pre 
 vent" she was moving away and called back in 
 a whisper. "Do not tell him, dear Doctor! He is 
 different from you he is not a reasonable person." 
 
 Clell was splashing out angrily berating the ob 
 structions and cutting himself on the cruel bayonet 
 edges as he reached the shell beach. Laure has 
 tened swiftly back to me and took my hand. 
 
 "Remember you are my friend you will not
 
 218 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 tell them! You will not hinder us it is our my 
 last chance, dear Doctor! For my island !" 
 
 Then she was gone, her soft step on the shells 
 lost in the heavy grind of dell s boots breaking 
 through the jungle, her form melting in the star 
 blur over the still lake. I stood there, sighed and 
 lighted my pipe. The matches were damp, of course, 
 and I was scratching a second when Clell reached 
 me. 
 
 "It s no go. I suppose I m not a good swamper 
 yet, but I d swear this was the place. But one can t 
 make it ten yards on foot it s simply bottomless. 
 We ll go start the launch and run along shore." 
 
 "U-um," I mused, and lighted another match. We 
 went along the ridge in the starlight and presently 
 my friend stopped. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, the boat s gone !" 
 
 "Amazing!" 
 
 "Here s where we left her. Here s the mark of 
 her keel she s gone!" 
 
 "By jove! Impossible!" I stared down at that 
 mark in the shells. 
 
 He looked at me in some suspicion ; I am a bad ac 
 tor. "Doctor Dick, is it possible you stood here 
 and they could steal the launch?"
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 219 
 
 "Confound the matches !" I was busying trying 
 to light my pipe. 
 
 "Did she take it and you wouldn t chase her?" 
 
 "My dear boy, I will not chase a woman under 
 any circumstances. At my age " 
 
 He shut me up angrily. "Somehow, you take it 
 too calmly. Don t you realize we re marooned on 
 this reef a half-mile long and thirty feet wide 
 the lake on one side, the swamp on the other. Not 
 a house except Papa Prosper s and wouldn t we 
 look like fools going there ?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly. But that is just where we shall 
 go. Papa rises at four for his early coffee it is 
 past three now. We shall be just in time for Papa s 
 excellent morning coffee. And at seven breakfast 
 ah, the excellent shrimp fricassee one gets at 
 Papa s!" 
 
 He shook his fist at me. "I don t understand you. 
 We are two first-class fools and Virgil will dis 
 cover it. That s what hurts me!" 
 
 We tramped down the beach in the warm star 
 light. I was trying to solve the crisis in Laure s 
 mystery of the jungles. Traitor I undoubtedly was 
 to our fellows, to the Meadows Land Company and 
 my own pocketbook. And yet somehow I wanted
 
 220 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Laure to have her fling; it would end for her and 
 her fat knight soon enough, I imagined. Only, 
 what was the danger from which she would shield 
 us to-night? 
 
 Clell stopped once and stared at me. "They 
 know we are trapped on this side of the island. Do 
 you suppose they will harm the dredge?" 
 
 "She will fight fair now," I retorted. 
 
 "But the niggers?" 
 
 "The blacks are interested in but one thing and 
 that is the reward the baron has promised them 
 for digging out that old wreck. At least I think 
 it that way. Besides there is Laure, and her trick 
 with that rifle of hers is marvelous. She will not 
 allow them." 
 
 "Then what?" he queried. "Why maroon us 
 here?" 
 
 "To keep your fool neck out of trouble. I be 
 lieve on my honor the girl is now fighting for 
 us do you understand that?" 
 
 He shook his head. "To save Virgil s machine," 
 I went on. "To fight fair, despite all of them. 
 Even to lose Isle Bonne, because she d rather lose 
 her island than lose our good opinion. There is one 
 of us, you see, whom she loves !" 
 
 "Doctor Dick," he retorted: "Is it you, or I?"
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 221 
 
 "Play fair," I answered beguilingly. "You must, 
 you know. It s in the compact the three of us. 
 Now let s find a way out of this bad hole. We 
 New York fellows are all very well on the asphalt, 
 but we ought not go in the deep swamp and ex 
 pect to outwit them. I see it now perfectly. You 
 recall that I was reluctant " 
 
 He cut me off with an angry whoop up at Pros- 
 per s gallerie which we could make out whitely 
 under the oaks. Again and again he shouted, and 
 then went up the steps. The doors, as usual, in 
 this innocent land, were tight shut to keep out the 
 mosquitoes, and the chimneys wide open to let them 
 in. Not a window glass nor a screen was in the 
 mansion. Clell rattled the casing. 
 
 Presently out came Papa Prosper s head, sleepily, 
 and then with amiable surprise. 
 
 "Ah, messieur ! Me I hear a noise !" 
 
 "We re stuck on the cheniere. Some of your peo 
 ple stole our boat." 
 
 Papa paddled to his door and threw the great 
 bars. He turned up his dim lamp and stood scratch 
 ing his head. 
 
 "We want to get away back to the dredge," 
 went on Clell impatiently. "Damn it all, man did 
 who did this?"
 
 222 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Ah, dis worl ! she is too much. Me I go 
 fo nuttin lak dat. You boat, he get stole? Ah, 
 what infamy!" 
 
 "Is your granddaughter Laure? is she here?" 
 
 "Me I don t know. All a-time mademoiselle 
 she go f o honey bees !" 
 
 "Bees nothing. It s almost dawn." 
 
 "Sho is. Neve I see honey bees get up so soon 
 as did bees on Isle Bonne! Coffee, m sieurs? she 
 mak dis life." 
 
 Clell turned away and stared into the first pink 
 of dawn over Isle Bonne woods. Northward the 
 films of mist showed on the water. The mosquitoes 
 were singing in Papa Prosper s honeysuckle. Papa 
 himself w r as busied at his charcoal stove and coffee 
 dripper. 
 
 We two sat on the galleries and watched the 
 last of the Drouillots kneeling lean-shaken in his 
 pajamas to fan his charcoals. His fine old grizzled 
 face was demure as a maiden s. Amiably he lit a 
 cigarette and sighed up at us. 
 
 "All dis worl , she have mooch trouble except 
 me, messieurs. Me I don t go fo nuttin . Coffee 
 on my gallerie, messieurs, and dat breeze off my 
 sweet isle all-a-time livin jus lak a millionaire 
 me." 
 
 We sighed also, regarding that decadent happy
 
 THE OLD PIRATE HEAD 223 
 
 gentleman of the pirate s line. Never would he 
 question what we muddy adventurers were doing 
 on his shell beach in darkness; never would he stir 
 a malevolent suspicion of any one into his morning 
 coffee. Clell sighed again and scanned the unten- 
 anted lake with its sunken shores, the green gray 
 wall of forest behind us, all dawn-sweet and shot 
 with sun s gold through its cathedral plumes above 
 the mirrored pools. 
 
 And while we wearily sat against the gallerie 
 rail and waited for the coals to heat, there came 
 again the sound of an explosion in the heart of 
 Laure s isle. The reverberations reached through 
 the still glades and out over the lakes and passes 
 like thunder of the hurricane month. 
 
 "There!" cried Clell. "Again! I tell you, Doc 
 tor Dick we ve got to be in on that whatever 
 they re blowing up!" 
 
 Papa Prosper paddled along, stirring his thick de- 
 cotion. "Whateve go up, she must come down, 
 messieurs. All-a-time all-a-time, messieurs. Cof 
 fee on my gallerie, messieurs? Coffee dis sweet 
 mawnin just, lak a millionaire." 
 
 Ah, happy Prosper! I stirred my sugar in, and 
 waited for something to come down just lak a 
 millionaire.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 
 
 OVER the coffee we diligently tried to ferret 
 information out of Papa Prosper as to doings 
 in the deep swamp. We learned, for our pains, that 
 cucumbers did not do at all well in the black earth 
 of the cheniere. Papa had planted one in 1883, 
 and then had retired to his galleries to reflect upon 
 the vanity of government seeds and the worl in 
 general. "Me I write my good friend, M sieu Le 
 Blanc, who is in dat Congress. I say : What-all 
 a-matter with yo government ? Is it no f o nuttin I 
 plant dem seeds on my island? I say to my good 
 friend : Messieur Le Blanc, some-a-time yo see dat 
 Prasident yo say to him: "My friend Messieur 
 Prosper Drouillot, he say yo seeds not so much." 
 Ah me!" sighed Papa, "dis worl , he is strange!" 
 Clell murmured his despair. The long gray 
 shadows over the lake shortened until the sun 
 glanced down with mid-morning splendor into Pros- 
 per s odorous garden-pool behind the house. The 
 
 224
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 225 
 
 honey bees droned away into the forest isles; the 
 tree-frog sang in the eaves spout; Papa sat on his 
 gallerie and waited to be a millionaire. And not a 
 sign of life showed over the swamp lake, nor from 
 the flooded woods; the silence of Isle Bonne might 
 not have been disturbed for a century for all ap 
 pearances. 
 
 "I d give a month s pay to know what they re 
 doing back there," Clell muttered. He went down 
 the shell ridge trying to discover the pirogue trail 
 by which Laure entered the forest It was not even 
 blazed; a novice could not have entered a hundred 
 feet without being bewildered by the sunless depths, 
 the tangle of fallen trees and creepers, the cypress 
 spikes, the giant ferns and palmettos growing here, 
 there, on rotted logs above the water. 
 
 My young friend came back impatiently and 
 stuck his wet high boots up on Prosper s gallerie 
 rail. "If I had as much as a loose log, I d try to 
 paddle around the island, Doctor Dick !" 
 
 I sleepily dissuaded him from such folly with the 
 heat of high noon nearing. Out of his thrilling past 
 Papa dug adventures for our entertainment 
 
 "My cou t, wan time she sit here, m sieu. On 
 dis gallerie so. Beeg yelleh lady from Temple 
 Chcniere she come testify in my cou t Some leetle
 
 226 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 dog, he got stole. All dem people from Temple 
 Cheniere, come soon soon in mawnin, and me I 
 have to get out and mek coffee f o all dem witnesses. 
 Dat leetle dog, he eat some too. I tie dat leetle 
 dog to my rain barrel, and I say to all dem wit 
 nesses: Now, what-a-matteh ? What fo all yo 
 come and mak me hold dis cou t? 
 
 "Beeg yalleh lady, she talk soon soon. Odder 
 lady, she talk soon soon. Me I sit here and I 
 couldn t get no fo nuttin out of dat Indian gumbo 
 dey talk. I say: Lady, all about dis leetle dog in 
 dat kind of talk dis cou t, he can t say/ 
 
 "Beeg yalleh lady, she say: Ah, Papa, you ol 
 son-of-a-gun yo shut up ! 
 
 "M sieu, what yo think of dat beeg yelleh lady ?" 
 
 "I hope," I put in sympathetically, "you upheld 
 the dignity of the court?" 
 
 "I sho did, m sieu. I say to dat beeg yelleh 
 lady: So so! ^o talk dat way to dis cou t? 
 Me I sho upheld the dignity of dis cou t I tell 
 dat beeg yelleh lady she wan son-of-a-gun, too !" 
 
 The tree-frog was yelling again, and the court 
 languidly flicked a mosquito. Justice had been done, 
 and Papa rolled another cigarette. And the long 
 broody heat of the south coast summer day was 
 on us. Every one slept on Papa Prosper s gallerie,
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 227 
 
 except the tree-frog. I drowsed in my chair. Clell, 
 also, had settled back dead tired after the night s 
 perplexities. Papa had gone entirely; his limp 
 socked foot thrust into the honeysuckle masses. 
 That was the last I knew. Then came oblivion. I 
 dreamed that the Board of Directors of the Prairie 
 Meadows Land Company was sitting about its ma 
 hogany table as a High Court on the Beeg Yalleh 
 Lady, and that I and the Leetle Dog were tied to the 
 table legs as material witnesses. The High Court 
 decreed that the three of us were to be consigned 
 down, down through endless and increasing layers 
 of heat down, down, through blistering caverns 
 of chaos to the last pit Me and the Dog and the 
 Beeg Yalleh Lady; and then suddenly Virgil Will 
 iams looked over the rim of Hades, threw us a 
 line and yelled that it w T as his business to pull us 
 back personal and specified. Which he did. 
 
 And I started up with a gasp to find the two 
 o clock sun fair on my head. I was stung and 
 lathered with perspiration ; and sat up, still gasping, 
 to stare straight at Virgil Williams leaning thought 
 fully against the gallerie rail looking at me. Even 
 in my amazement I noticed, on his bronzed lean 
 face, in his deep worn eyes, a great soft joy a 
 triumph.
 
 228 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "You see," he began, as if I was guessing at it 
 "we won!" 
 
 "Won man?" 
 
 "Cou t. Appeal decided for us on all points." He 
 came across the gallerie and took my hands. "Big 
 Doctor Dick! By Mighty, the big fight s done! 
 We ll get our bonds taken up now we can slap a 
 quarter of a million dollars into the work in thirty 
 days. I got busy in the city I started em those 
 New York fel-los! I wired for the new machines 
 to come a jumpin three new, two-yard dredges 
 that we ordered a year ago and couldn t pay for. 
 And the men Big Jim s in the city bu stin things 
 open on the levee. In thirty days, Doctor Dick, 
 you ll see Isle Bonne cut to the sea !" 
 
 I was on my feet shaking hands again. My two 
 companions at the gallerie end were still at their 
 siesta. Williams had hardly noticed them. Never 
 had I seen him so exalted. 
 
 "Six years stawms and failure and loneliness," 
 he said and his high smile came. "And your money, 
 I got into it, Doctor Dick and Mary s and all of 
 em. Neveh hit me till now what a load I been 
 carryin ." He wiped his brow, and his level glance 
 went to the wilderness behind us. " MembeH 
 what I told you once when I showed you the marsh ?
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 229 
 
 That lone settler s shack that fel-lo that bought 
 his forty acres, and took one look at it and then 
 blowed his head off? And in his shack I found 
 the little baby wagon with his pink side-winders ?" 
 
 "I remember." 
 
 "Yes, seh. Three years from now his swamp will 
 be a gyarden, and the black soil that Old Mississip 
 has been pouring down here fo fifty centuries 
 off the best of the whole country why, from here 
 to the gulf you ll see orange trees and almonds, 
 and figs and truck and corn and little homes and 
 shade trees. And we ll build a hotel to bring the 
 no then land-seekers to, and in it we ll put that little 
 baby cart with the pink side-winders just to show 
 em and tell em about the first lone martyr who 
 shot himself when he saw what he d bought the 
 sifted son-of-a-gun!" He laughed in his great 
 pathos for the other: "But no one ll ever guess 
 what I fought through personal and specified 
 to make a gyarden smile out of this wilderness!" 
 
 "Well well " I stammered. I could not answer 
 him; his triumph was too splendid. I saw a very 
 new cabin launch out at the edge of the dazzling 
 shells, the brightwork on her with the glitter of 
 gold. Some one was under the awning, but I could 
 not make out. I turned again to Virgil.
 
 230 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "But why did you come first to Isle Bonne?" 
 
 He made a gesture to Prosper s sleeping form. 
 "To tell em!" His voice lowered, his smile deep 
 ened. "Papa and that old dog the baron. And 
 clean their shootin , sneakin niggers off our is 
 land. And Laure " He stopped softly. After 
 the silence, he sighed : "Only that is what bothers 
 me. Laure I told you long ago I loved her, Doc 
 tor Dick." 
 
 I nodded. I wondered slowly, how he loved her. 
 He, the silent fighting man, watching always her 
 fear and hatred of him deepen, it seemed. Never 
 could he speak; there was the trust that others had 
 given him, there were the pledges he had made at 
 the beginning. The man s size job it had bulked 
 between him and her always; never a word could 
 he speak while he had watched the other man at 
 tracting Laure s fancy with his graces. 
 
 It seemed now that he guessed my pity. His slow 
 smile came again. 
 
 "All right. The big fight s done. I ll have 
 to tell her she s lost just as I always told her. 
 Just like I pleaded with her to compromise the case 
 years ago and take the forty thousand we offered. 
 She could have had it then, but now well, the 
 company withdrew that when her lawyers fought
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 231 
 
 em to a finish. They ransacked all the old records 
 in N Awlyins and in France, too, I reckon, tryin 
 to find the old Spanish grants that they said gave 
 it to Prosper s line of the family. Prosper" his 
 benign eye fell upon Papa s ear sticking out from 
 under the newspaper "reckon if I wake him up 
 and tell him the news, he ll only just look in his 
 seed catalogue !" 
 
 "And you came here to tell Laure first?" 
 
 "It s only square. I I she cain t hate me al 
 ways if she sees I m always square. She d never 
 been so bitter if it wasn t for the baron he made 
 her hate me. Why, the old rooster I ll ship him 
 cross-lots to Kingdom Come this week. I got a 
 bunch of deputies comin with our new niggers 
 gunmen, too. They ll hunt Crump and Hogjaw 
 and Doc Fortune off Isle Bonne woods in a week. 
 I ll be too busy." 
 
 "I think," I murmured, with a qualm at my de 
 ceit: "they re busy also." 
 
 He laughed softly. "I reckon. The baron s 
 some boy f o treasueh ! He can have it. But his 
 niggers got to go. Big Jim s bringin five depu 
 ties gun-toters we picked up and had deputized fo* 
 this. Sheriff said neve mind de-tails. Only 
 Laure " he mused again. "Well, it s got to be
 
 232 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 done we re on the job now. I can t stop fo 
 women." Then the patient pain deepened in the 
 lines of his face: "But she wondeh what she d 
 say if she knew that I was the one men called the 
 dreameh?" 
 
 "She is awakening," I retorted. He stared at me. 
 Clell was rolling over on his gallerie bench. The 
 boss eyes were on him as he sat up. 
 
 "Redfield thought I left you at the machine?" 
 Clell came to him quietly. "It was my fault. I 
 thought there was something going on in the island 
 something that put her in danger. So I per 
 suaded Doctor Dick to come and try to get in with 
 me, and they stole our boat and marooned us here. 
 It it was for her," he finished stubbornly but with 
 out malice, and it was the longest speech he had 
 addressed to Williams in all the dispiriting months. 
 "You see I don t think she ll harm the machine. 
 She was there she quite gave her word." 
 The boss looked wonderingly. "Yes?" 
 "You see, she ll play right now," went on Clell 
 soberly. "Doctor Dick has sized it up there s one 
 of us she cares for." 
 
 The Texan did not answer. But I put in lan 
 guidly : "Me undoubtedly. You see I am the one
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 233 
 
 who has amused her mightly. My dear chaps 
 you lose." 
 
 I said it well. They stared incredulously, but 
 mystified. Then the Texan shook his head: 
 "Sho Doctor Dick! I told you long ago" then 
 he stopped and looked at the younger man patient 
 ly: "Well, what s the use? I expaict I ve no call 
 fo women. She ll hate me now fo I beat her. 
 Isle Bonne is ours. The cou t gave us every point 
 clean." 
 
 "You won?" 
 
 "Yes and she ll have to know. The Supreme 
 Cou t ended it fo her. The French heirs held 
 the real titles. Prosper and his dad and his grand 
 dad before him they were all a bunch of squat 
 ters. And we got our title confirmed abroad." 
 
 Clell was silent. Prosper was stirring his coffee 
 upon the table. 
 
 "You heard what I said, Papa?" the Texan con 
 tinued. "I just dropped around to tell you you* 
 lawyers will let you know next." 
 
 "Ah, dem lawyehs, m sieu! All-a-time I tell 
 Mademoiselle Laure: Whaffor dem lawyehs? Le 
 Bon Dieu He mek dat sun shine, and our leetle 
 isle, she is green and shady, and all-a-time yo*
 
 234 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 honey bees, mademoiselle, can not yo hear yo honey 
 bees? Ah, dat worT what is he fo yo , Laure? 
 Wan green leetle island, he is yo s. 
 
 We seemed stilled by that gentle voice. Pros- 
 per s languid eyes went out to Laure s wilderness. 
 The mirrored day lay in her wondrous lake. The 
 sky was flecked by tiny scales of white rimmed with 
 gold drifting up from the gulf as they might have 
 done to lure her buccaneer ancestors from their 
 lawless trafficking to Isle Bonne s peaceful shore. 
 
 "But I tell you," went on Virgil slowly, "that 
 you ve lost." 
 
 "M sieu?" Prosper inquired gently still. "How 
 can dat be ?" 
 
 "The court" 
 
 The descendant of the gentlemen of Carondelet s 
 time shrugged : "All dis of cou ts fou ty years 
 now, m sieu, have I heard of cou ts so long my 
 grandfather s cousin in Bordeaux he been in cou t 
 fo Isle Bonne. All-a-time I say to Mademoiselle 
 Laure: On ou cool gallerie we sit, man chere, 
 and watch the lilies drift; and out in dat worl 
 Le Bon Dieu! talk and talk and talk dem cou ts ! 
 always it was so I expect, mebbe, it go on fo 
 eveh, but what has it to do with you and me, mon 
 chere, on ou leetle isle ? "
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 235 
 
 "But it s ended now." Virgil s voice was low 
 and strong. "Where is she?" 
 
 Prosper s old grace inclined him indifferently. He 
 took a pinch of snuff and searched for a cigarette. 
 "Her leetle isle, m sieu somewhere she is there. 
 Me I no go fo nuttin . Isle Bonne, m sieu it 
 loves her, and every mawnin it call and call, and 
 every mawnin Laure she go singin into her forest." 
 
 I heard Clell mutter. He had turned away and 
 was staring at the launch and the figure in it 
 which we could hardly see for the palmettos of 
 the shell beach. 
 
 "Messieurs, you shall have the coffee." Papa was 
 moving away to the house door. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Ah, yes. One does not come to Isle Bonne, mes 
 sieurs, and not of our coffee take wan leetle cup. 
 A match to dat charcoal furnace, and we are ready." 
 And in the door he rubbed his slender hands. "To 
 Mademoiselle Laure, m sieu, you address all dis 
 about cou ts and lawyehs. Me I no so much lak 
 dat." 
 
 We stood looking from Papa s gallerie. Virgil 
 sighed ; his exultance had gone. Somehow the long 
 shades reached from Isle Bonne s plumed oaks to 
 cross his spirit. Then he muttered patiently :
 
 236 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Laure, she cain t hate me forever." 
 
 Clell turned suddenly to him. "If she ever real 
 izes she is beaten, she ll go with the baron abroad." 
 
 Virgil started: "Yes?" 
 
 "So they declared. I don t know how but it 
 it can t be that way ! With that roaring old goat 
 without money with nothing but his old sword 
 and his appetite for beer. It would be ridiculous 
 monstrous ! That child of the island woods !" 
 
 "She cain t " the Texan muttered, and stared 
 at Clell. They seemed measuring each other s will 
 and purpose. In the silence I heard Papa shuffling 
 about his bare floor for his coffee things again. 
 
 "She cain t," the Texan repeated. "But now 
 someway, I cain t offer her any money as a compro 
 mise money," he went on again "that wouldn t 
 do. It s where I made my first mistake four years 
 ago. I didn t know her then !" 
 
 "No. Not if you thought she would be bought off 
 with money." 
 
 "Money?" The boss looked at him in wonder 
 that grew to his silent pain. "I ain doin this fo 
 money. She nev could see." His lean hand mo 
 tioned to the cypress isle. "But you, Redfield, I 
 thought " and he was dumb again. Always they 
 thought him the money-grabber, the ditch-digger,
 
 THE TURN OF FORTUNE 237 
 
 no one could get away from that to sweep the far 
 horizons of his vision which he had no language to 
 express. "Well," he added, "I expaict we ought to 
 go now. Only, money it was the job I saw the 
 world s work, fightin back the jungle on one side, 
 and the sea on the other. Sho , would I gone 
 through what I did the last eight years f o money ?" 
 He looked at me with his old pain, and then his 
 smile. "I expaict from the first I loved her." He 
 looked quietly at the younger man. "I expaict I 
 did in my ove alls and jumper, fightin the main 
 ditch through. And she was lookin fo dukes and 
 knights and I expaict you looked mo like one than 
 any man she d eve seen." 
 
 The other man was still. "Well, you had your 
 chance. I ve kept still and I ve played square. You 
 didn t think it of me, did you?" 
 
 "No." He watched Clell again with curious wist- 
 fulness. "But you made good. Yes, seh! Damn 
 you I was just tellin Mary out the in the new 
 boat. She came she said Doctor Dick sent fo her. 
 This man s game seemed to bother him some." 
 
 Mary! We stared out at the little white cruiser. 
 I had not supposed she would!
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 
 
 WE hurried down the hot plank wharf to the 
 new little cabin boat, and I quite upset a lan 
 guid young town darky who was wiping the hatch 
 way hand-rails. Clell had muttered rebelliously ; he 
 was furiously feeling he had been tricked someway 
 or other. 
 
 "You sent for her and never told me !" he said. 
 "That was not right. And what did you tell her ?" 
 
 "Nothing. I merely wished Mary to see well, as 
 a stockholder in this corporation, with all her pre 
 cious money involved I thought she had a right to 
 know. Such a mixed affair as we have business 
 and er love, and all that kind of thing. I thought 
 we needed expert advice." 
 
 He glared at me he didn t know how to meet 
 her. 
 
 Mary, gray-eyed, calm and sufficient, standing in 
 the doorway, was laughing with old friendliness. 
 
 238
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 239 
 
 Clell stammered a rather casual greeting as he took 
 her hand; he looked at me again as if he doubted 
 my motives. And then he put on a new stern air; 
 and I saw at once a reaction in her. Quite amaze 
 ment, almost unbelief, in fact, that her young man 
 had gone so far from her. He had a hardy and 
 rugged initiative, without trace of resentment, now, 
 but mere distant and lofty friendliness. I, too, was 
 astonished; he had the "mental drop" on her as Vir 
 gil said afterward. 
 
 "Found her in the company s office," the latter 
 explained. "I went in there clean discouraged it 
 was before I d heard of the case. And there was 
 Mary talking to young Kenner, askin how she could 
 get out to our wilderness with the big news she d 
 just learned. And then she turned on me and said, 
 quite as if she d expaicted me : Virgil, we won the 
 case! I was clean foolish fo a moment yes, seh 
 winnin that case, and Mary tellin it to me first !" 
 
 "The attorneys had just got their wire," Mary 
 explained, "and I had reached New Orleans that 
 morning. Virgil," she looked at the gaunt Texan, 
 "I never saw him turn pale before." 
 
 "Yes, seh, reckon I did. Only nobody knows 
 well, all this " He raised his hand solemnly to the 
 silence, the high white heat of sky and marsh and
 
 240 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 water. "They told me eight years ago I couldn t 
 do it and I said I could, and made em trust me. 
 I fought it here and in Chicago and New York, and 
 things got worse year by year. Then this lawsuit 
 broke, and I had to fight that, too; and find the 
 money and keep the machines pushin on and the 
 men at the job. If I told you-all how many times 
 I failed you d not believe." He smiled patiently. 
 "All right, the peak of the load is shifted. Yeh see 
 the money s comin now and the machines and men 
 started before I left N Awlyns. Mary, I m glad 
 you didn t come sooner it would have been fightin 
 bad to watch us here losin losin , day by day." 
 
 "I know," she answered. "Doctor Dick kept writ 
 ing me." 
 
 Clell and Virgil both looked at me. I had been 
 traitor all around. Clell was still nursing his hurt 
 pride. And I wondered what else ? Then, in a mo 
 ment, Mary, with her quick way of sensing things, 
 spoke what we each were thinking. 
 
 "And the girl and her island ? What about her ?" 
 
 We were still. One man of us had a great secret 
 love that was a pathos in his victory; and another 
 had a romantic infatuation that was pity and chiv 
 alry combined; and I? Well, I had the memory of 
 the night she saved our lives in the fire-filled canal
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 241 
 
 and of the time she hit me with the duck. We 
 were still it hurt us all. 
 
 "She loses everything, I suppose," Mary went on. 
 
 "Yes," muttered Clell, "that s the abominable 
 thing about it." 
 
 "I tried to make her see," Virgil said gently. "I 
 got no call to fight a woman I tried to explain that 
 years ago. I tried to carry her side of the load, too. 
 But the job couldn t wait fo any one. You see, I 
 had to think of folks up home widda women, I 
 knew, and people that had bought ou stock. Bought 
 company stock on my word when they wouldn t 
 take the company s. So I had to win only Laure 
 couldn t see. She never will see." 
 
 The dogged hopelessness in him belied his smile. 
 
 "Well," muttered Clell again. "You ll have to tell 
 her she s lost. I couldn t have the face for that !" 
 
 Mary looked keenly at him. I noticed now that 
 with all her grooming, that clear look of the north 
 that spoke her strength and poise, she seemed tired 
 a bit, with a wistfulness, as if her coming had not 
 been all that she had dreamed. Her look upon Clell 
 with her old level coolness and common sense be 
 came confused, I thought; he had a reserve, a sure- 
 ness, a man s rough edge about him now that was 
 new to her, and perhaps startling. And he took her
 
 242 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 presence, after his first surprise, with imperturbable 
 complacence; he was no longer the appealing lover 
 of a self-satisfied and successful city woman who 
 could stipulate her own conditions to him. She 
 looked at me suddenly with a smile, and murmured : 
 
 "Well, from what I hear, it is a pity!" 
 
 "Somehow," I retorted, "I refuse to be sorry for 
 Laure Drouillot. I don t know why. Only she 
 seems as capable in her world as you do in yours, 
 Mary. As for her wretched island, confound it! 
 I shall be glad to see it drained and leveed, and cut 
 up and raising corn and truck every acre of it. 
 So will she some day she is a cantankerous child, 
 now, even if one does, er like her." 
 
 "Like her!" cried Mary. "From what I heard 
 from what Dick wrote " 
 
 "Get out!" I roared. "She well, there wasn t 
 much else of interest. This is a wretched hole for 
 summering, and to have a girl with a piratical an 
 cestry poking about, taking a pot shot at you now 
 and then and once she threw at me, a duck " 
 
 "Doctor Dick," broke in Mary patiently, "whicH 
 one of you imagines himself the most in love with 
 her?" 
 
 "Tut tut." I said. Clell grimaced, and Virgil
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 243 
 
 was busied with his head-lines. The talk was dis 
 tasteful to him; and Mary felt it at once. 
 
 The two men and the darky were getting the 
 boat away, despite Papa Prosper who was paddling 
 out through the sun with more of his inevitable cof 
 fee for the lady. Mary leaned to me as the motor 
 began its humming and we shot around out of the 
 hot cove of the woods. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, why did you send for me ?" 
 
 "Your young man was liable to mess things up. 
 Of course, after all, you love him " 
 
 She gave me a hard look. "Not necessarily. He 
 is perfectly free." 
 
 "Get busy get busy," I answered dryly. "You 
 cool, sane, practical modern women don t know how 
 to love a man. If you did, you wouldn t talk of him 
 being free. If you have any primal stuff if you 
 are anything else but the efficient and highly com 
 plex and invaluable confidential secretary to the 
 head of the Electric Trust why, now, be it use 
 it ! Fight with it ! Nobody else cares a hang !" 
 
 She gave another withering look at me as Clell 
 came aft big, bronzed, complacent, and with 
 healthy and detached good humor began to trifle 
 with some silver danglet hanging to her hand-bag.
 
 244 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 There was no suggestion of an appealing lover about 
 him now and she saw it. 
 
 "Mary looks very fit, doesn t she, Doctor Dick," 
 he began, "as ripping as ever good looks and all." 
 There was an innocent condescension in his voice 
 that had a remarkable effect on Mary. She got up 
 hastily and went forward to stand at the rail and 
 look off at that fantastic isle of white shells and 
 gray-green jungle with the purple hyacinths float 
 ing to the sea. Then she turned back on me the 
 second look of anger I remembered in her since she 
 was a child. I believe she thought we were putting 
 up some sort of game on her. 
 
 Clell looked casually after her. "Lordy, what s 
 the matter with Mary?" Then, after a thought, he 
 turned to stare at Laure s island. "I wonder if she 
 is in any sort of a row with the baron, or his 
 niggers? Well, the jig is up, poor kid as far as 
 the land goes. And Williams has his last chance 
 now. Then I m free of him." 
 
 He still kept his good-humored look upon Mary, 
 who did not return to us until the boat had turned 
 into the main canal at sunset. There, outside the 
 shoals lay a dirty steamboat with a barge in tow, 
 and astern of this a long quarter-boat that seemed 
 alive with men.
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 245 
 
 "Waitin f o the tide !" called Virgil. "Big Jim 
 sho moved some. We passed him at noon, shovin 
 that oil-burner through. That s what winnin 
 means! We had fifty thousand dollars on call an 
 hour after that cou t decision. Look at the men 
 wops this time, and no levee niggers to be scared out 
 by hants and pirate haids. And so you fel-los let 
 em voodoo my cook ? Sho , I have a passable bad 
 time with cooks !" 
 
 He was cheerily filled with the new order. Big 
 Jim hailed him from the oil-barge. In the quarter- 
 boat galley fires were going, and men stuck their 
 heads out to wave at him some of the old hands 
 who were going back with the boss and knew him. 
 The sight of it all, the men and machines and the 
 sense of power lighting Virgil s eye, made my heart 
 throb he had waited so long, so stubbornly trusted 
 himself when none other did. Only once, when he 
 looked off at the blue forest isle, I saw the wince 
 of pain. He was looking at me and the battle-light 
 died for a moment, and then lit his face again. 
 
 "They ll get in on the flood," he said, "and to 
 morrow you ll see things begin to shape up at the 
 plant. And as fo that old mud-hook at the end of 
 the ditch, why she ll be so thick with mechanics by 
 seven o clock that you cain t see her." He glanced
 
 246 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 at a gay little calendar down in the engine-room. 
 "Twenty-eight days more to cinch that option on 
 the Peterson tract but sho ! who s worryin about 
 that now, when we got the Isle Bonne land tied up 
 and branded?" Then his brow contracted after this 
 unwonted exultation. "Only, the hard part that s 
 comin " he jerked his head slowly toward the 
 wooded isle "and I reckon that s on me, too." 
 
 I knew. Mary heard him and she nodded at me. 
 Clell was watching the fleet and army of the new 
 invasion of Isle Bonne. "It s queer," he murmured, 
 "what just a scratch on a piece of paper will do. 
 And two or three moldy old justices sitting about 
 a table in some room, mumbling away together 
 about a matter they never saw or heard or felt in 
 person. They say this, and right away Zing! it 
 loosens up a half million dollars away up in New 
 York, and down here in the swamps two hundred 
 men and boats and barges go smashing into the 
 job. And somewhere in there" he, too, made 
 a gesture toward Laure s isle "they smash her and 
 her dream off the map. What can she understand ?" 
 
 Mary still was wisely silent I, too, had nothing 
 to say. Glancing at Mary s calm profile with its 
 clear groomed pallor, which was of health, and 
 yet the health of town and office, and not the sun-
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 247 
 
 richened content of the outdoors, I had an idea 
 that every instant her alert intuition was reading 
 both of those men quite mercilessly. And their 
 cross-purposes and their problem. 
 
 She turned to me at her side presently. "The 
 wonderful thing is how they regard each other 
 after the way they did in the North ! That is splen 
 did, at least you are a magician in that, Doctor 
 Dick!" 
 
 "They hammered it out together. Clell didn t 
 break and Virgil knew he wouldn t. That s what 
 I call the fine thing. They are man and man now. 
 Only right in Virgil s triumph, dell s got the edge 
 on him with Laure, and that s what hurts. She ll 
 never let Virgil care for her now; and Clell stands 
 ready to throw up everything to help her. She s 
 too proud and high to listen to anything from Vir 
 gil about her island, and as for loving him " 
 
 Mary sat up straight: "Oh, bother! Why 
 shouldn t she ?" 
 
 I looked at Mary s one-time young man. "You 
 can see for yourself." 
 
 I may have been putting it strong. But then I 
 loved these two, and I had wanted them to love 
 each other ever since they sat on my knee. Mary 
 needed a jolt; she always had, for that matter, in
 
 248 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 the matter of Clell. As he himself said, she had 
 been super-civilized. He had asked me once long 
 ago if I could imagine Mary having a baby. I 
 could not, any more than I could the Amalgamated 
 Electric. 
 
 Mary continued to watch the slant of the rozo 
 cane overhanging the canal. Above it the blue wall 
 of Isle Bonne woods to the northward grew out 
 against the hot opal of the sky. Over that other 
 wall of yellow-green cane came the breeze off the 
 Mexican Gulf. Virgil was watching first one way 
 and then the other. I knew the sad triumphant 
 vision that filled him. Along that outward seaway 
 his miles of levee would arise, behind the ramparts 
 his giant pumps would hurl off the alien waters 
 and the black soil ripen in the sun, until he saw his 
 happy land smiling with homes and gardens. Only 
 for it all he was giving up his love; again he was 
 called on to step aside in the greater thing. 
 
 When I went to him he was musing over the 
 steering wheel. 
 
 "Yes, seh," he looked at me patiently, "that little 
 baby buggy with the pink side-winders sittin over 
 the in that old shack now I m goin to get it and 
 keep it in out of the damp but I don t know fo 
 what. Only it ll be glad to know we won !"
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 249 
 
 I laughed in some happy despair at him. The 
 sun went down incomparably in far-flung masses 
 of cloud, like tattered worlds falling to the west as 
 the snug little boat followed the last shining light 
 of the canal. She came out upon the sprawled 
 lame monster of a dredge at the end like a neat 
 white nurse hurrying to succor a maimed brawler. 
 Virgil was out on the greasy deck with the line 
 first of all. 
 
 "You old hook," he cried buoyantly, "I just want 
 to see," and then he stopped, staring up in the twi 
 light at the great derrick which swung out over the 
 saw-grass with the clam-shell bucket hanging be 
 neath it. 
 
 "You?" he went on slowly; "what is it?" 
 
 Laure was in the craneman s seat looking down 
 silently. I saw, among the iron levers and chains, 
 the automatic rifle across her lap. The boss eye 
 was on it also. 
 
 "See here," he said, "what is this fo ?" 
 
 "I just came," she answered, her small alien hands 
 out to the gear of his beloved beast, "because well, 
 I knew no one was here." 
 
 "You stole our boat last night," cried Clell. "Why 
 that?" 
 
 "I didn t want you to go in," she said faintly.
 
 250 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "There was much much they were very angry 
 the men we had " 
 
 "And you came here," put in Virgil grimly, "with 
 your little gun to watch to-night, fo fear they d 
 turn a trick on me ?" 
 
 "I " she seemed to shrink from his directness, 
 "didn t know. There was a fight, you see, but I 
 didn t want I wanted it fair, you know after 
 what you said before about me." 
 
 The Texan was gazing at the muzzle of the little 
 gun in wonder. 
 
 "And your machine," she went on, "I wasn t go 
 ing to hurt it, m sieu. Only to hinder you delay 
 you keep you from my little isle. But the baron, 
 he waved his sword and said always : Lawyers and 
 mud-diggers never, mademoiselle, consider them 
 no, never jamais jamais! 
 
 "I think," said Virgil dryly, "you had better get 
 down." 
 
 "I can t," she murmured. "When I heard your 
 boat coming, I tried to slip down and to my pirogue 
 and something jerked on the little lever when I 
 touched it, and just then the chain went across my 
 foot." 
 
 She was not allowed to finish. Those two men 
 were forward and swinging up the iron ladder to
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 251 
 
 the craneman s roost. Virgil was the quicker. His 
 voice trembled when he touched her. 
 
 "Be still, there," he ordered. "The rachet wheel 
 slipped. The cogs on that reverse well, be still." 
 He worked silently about the girl s feet. I could 
 see her staring down in the gloom. 
 
 "It hurts," she said presently, "it s tightening on 
 my ankle." 
 
 Clell had slipped down and was in the engine- 
 room to get a wrench at Virgil s command. He 
 whispered to me in the murk of the shed. 
 
 "You know the fix she s in? There s a two-ton 
 bucket hanging by the chain, and that over a broken 
 tooth on the cog the thing her dynamite smashed. 
 If it drops it ll drag her down smash her on the 
 gear like a fly." 
 
 He was gone with that, tiptoeing to the derrick 
 ladder, reaching up. Softly the two men worked 
 without a word, hardly breathing. If she knew 
 death touched her, hung on the crumbling point of 
 a cog-tooth, she did not quiver. She leaned over, 
 her dark eyes watching Virgil who seemed trying 
 to insert a steel bar in the links of a chain and do 
 it all as delicately as one would tamper with an in 
 fernal machine. Once the smaller chain slipped, the 
 gear shuddered ; and the Texan stopped rigidly.
 
 252 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Be still," he breathed, but no one was moving. 
 Then I heard him mutter : "You little thing what 
 did you come here for ?" 
 
 "I wanted to be sure. There was no one here, 
 you see." 
 
 And I grasped that she had stolen out of the isle 
 to look after his black monster, to see, for some 
 reason, that no harm came to it from the baron s 
 renegades. 
 
 She finished her slow murmur to him. "I thought 
 it wouldn t be fair, if they did in spite of every 
 thing, you see !" 
 
 Then he also understood. He even paused in that 
 grim slow work that meant her life or death. "You 
 see," he went on, "I d thrust my right arm in this 
 cog only it wouldn t stop anything fo a second." 
 
 And she nodded. "I ve been watching it for a 
 long time. The little wheel, there, the steel kept 
 crumbling on that cog I could just see it while the 
 big thing swung and swung. Then it stopped." 
 
 We saw him wipe her blood from the back of his 
 hand across his brow; and she stared down at it. 
 It was hurting horribly, the slow twist of even that 
 delayed weight across her foot. And then Virgil 
 had worked his stout bar into the chain link, the end
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 253 
 
 of it through a step of the ladder; and with the 
 other end across his shoulder was rising from the 
 steps below rising and bending his back under the 
 weight, straining, with great gasps for breath until 
 the iron rungs were buckling under him. 
 
 Clell had come below him. But there was no room 
 for two. Again it was a man s size job for one. 
 We waited in that dusk, the Texan rising power 
 fully under his short lever, and the girl staring down 
 at him, her hands down to his shoulders by her 
 skirt. In that stillness we heard presently a mere 
 clank. Then as his straining breath came shorter, 
 a soft jar and the chain had slipped back safely 
 upon the broken tooth. And he stood up looking 
 at her, his wide gray hat off, the sweat upon the 
 pallor of his brow. 
 
 "You little thing," he muttered, "you neve knew, 
 did you?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered simply, "all the time. When 
 your boat touched the dredge I wondered if it would 
 jar the chain off. I didn t want to call. I I 
 couldn t call you I just wondered." 
 
 "Wondered? You would have died here to-night 
 when that cog crumbled under the bucket s 
 weight. Do you know ?"
 
 254 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She had hopped a step away as he helped her 
 down. Then, quite free of him, she put a hand to 
 the engine-room door frame and laughed. 
 
 "I know. And I wondered. What you-all would 
 say. The Yankees, they could tell: No mo she 
 fight us fo the little isle. The big machine has 
 killed her. " 
 
 The boss turned from the place. Her blood was 
 on his hands, and he wiped it across the derrick 
 beam. Mary had come to her. 
 
 "You re hurt, my dear where?" 
 
 The mistress of the isle hopped on like a crip 
 pled bird. "Not much my foot is cut, maybe. In 
 the cypress, once, a tree blew down across my pi 
 rogue, and I slashed my way out with my knife. 
 But this yes, it hurts and I am much obliged." 
 
 And looking at us and then the Texan in some 
 confusion, she repeated. "I m very much obliged. 
 I wondered what it was like up there to sit and 
 swing the crane and watch the black jaws grind 
 the life out of the little flowers and grasses. So, I 
 only touched it so and it fell and caught me." 
 
 The boss was looking quietly at her; she would 
 let none touch her bruised foot a bit of her old 
 blithe defiance had returned. 
 
 "To-morrow," Virgil muttered, "you come, and
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 255 
 
 you ll see it work. Outside " he beckoned down 
 the channel. "Outside, the s a hundred men and two 
 mo machines the canal is goin clean to the sea. 
 You you cain t stop us now, fo you see we 
 won !" 
 
 There was no need to say what he meant. I 
 could see her white face, framed by the dark hair 
 all disarrayed, set mute and grave. Then quietly 
 she spoke, but as if considering the iron repression 
 in his voice and not his words. 
 
 "You understand, don t you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. You mean we lost our island ?" 
 
 "We won," he went on steadily. "I told you long 
 ago!" 
 
 She sat quietly back upon the girder. I had 
 thought some great grief, an outcry would be hers; 
 or a passionate rebellion and defiance to him, the 
 courts, the law and officers. She had held them in 
 contempt so long, trusted so implicitly. 
 
 "I don t believe we lost our island. The baron, 
 always he say we can not lose our island. M sieu, 
 you are much mistaken." 
 
 Virgil turned in grim despair to us. "You see 
 that, Doctor Dick?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle, it s very true," I began. "The 
 Supreme Court "
 
 256 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "Oh, damn the court!" Clell broke in hotly. 
 "Can t you see she s hurt, and all shaken up without 
 this? It was no time to tell her." He had gone to 
 Laure, but she held him off with a gesture that 
 showed all of us she wished to see Virgil s face 
 clearly. 
 
 "M sieu, you have nev been a very bad man be- 
 fo ." She dropped back gently into her island pa 
 tois. "Papa Prosper, at the first he like yo always 
 always. He say: Dis gentleman, Laure, neve 
 he unkind lak a cou t. And I, m sieu," she stopped, 
 while we waited for her to go on. "Ah, well, my 
 little island! Why should it shine in the sun so? 
 and be so green, and with the shells so white and 
 with the lilies drifting, if they going to cut it up? 
 Le Bon Dieu neve fo that He make things beau 
 tiful." 
 
 "I reckon we can make it more beautiful," the 
 Texan said with a curious humbleness, "if you d 
 only believe so." 
 
 She listened with rare attentiveness. Again Mary 
 wanted to bandage that limping foot of hers with 
 the hem of her skirt, and again Laure refused; and 
 would not even take dell s arm to her little green 
 canoe that swung alongside. 
 
 "I don t believe," she murmured. "The baron
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF THE MONSTER 257 
 
 he say oh, this very day, he say: La Marquise, 
 neve you lose you little island. 
 
 "You ve lost," Virgil said gently. "And it s as 
 hard fo me as when you began the fight. Only 
 you d neve let me say so. Only you couldn t see !" 
 
 She looked at him in some confused respect that 
 I could not fathom. And as she moved away she 
 repeated in her quaint sincerity : 
 
 "To you, m sieu, I am very much obliged. Fo 
 saving my life. That was very fine. But me I m 
 going now. Away." 
 
 "Away?" 
 
 "To Messieur le Baron. Always I trust him 
 most. Neve he care for money. Always, he say, 
 does Messieur le Baron. Fo fair ladies I fight 
 with my long sword, mademoiselle but neve fo 
 money as Yankees do. Like a knight only he so 
 fat." 
 
 "He would fight for his beer," I murmured, "as 
 any proper knight would do." But she did not hear 
 me, and went down into her little green pirogue, 
 and sent it off in the star-dusted canal between the 
 shadowy cane masses. We were left staring after 
 her in some helplessness; and when her clear voice 
 came again out of the dusk we had no answer. 
 
 "Fo my life, m sieu I very much obliged."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 
 
 I WAS awakened the next morning in the grimy 
 little bunk-house on Williams dredge by the 
 grind of some heavier body against her timbers, and 
 then the scuffle of feet, cries and orders. Clell, who 
 had a bed across from me was already out from his 
 mosquito bar, and when I went to the work-deck I 
 discovered that the steamboat was alongside with 
 the oil-barge, and that men were already swarming 
 off with a staging to unload the stuff for the repair 
 of Williams machine. The Texan himself stood 
 watching the operations, and Big Jim, acting mate, 
 was cursing the crew in right true levee style. 
 
 Virgil raised his hand: "Jim, you fo get the s a 
 laidy in our cabin boat and she s just twenty yards 
 fo ward. A man could sho hear you cuss a mile 
 away. And a laidy like Mary I expaict two miles." 
 
 Big Jim grinned and at once evolved a sulphuric 
 pantomime for his wops. The skilled mechanics 
 were already looking over the wreck of the hoisting 
 
 258
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 259 
 
 gear. "I reckon it s no place fo laidies," went on 
 the boss. "Last night I had to pry one out of that 
 reverse chain." Then he saw me. "And I wondeh 
 how that little foot is this mawnin ?" 
 
 He had the light of new battle in his tired eyes. 
 "Yes, seh ! It s big. Sorry to rout yo out so early, 
 Docteh Dick but the man s size job is under way 
 again. We ll blow and worm a way to salt wateh 
 now, and no little old sorry ghosts can worry this 
 bunch." 
 
 But one little ghost on the green isle surely wor 
 ried him. His gray eyes leveled to the woods across 
 the sun-flecked marsh. And his patient regret came 
 into the voice : "All right I know what you think- 
 in . I ll fix that up, too, someway." 
 
 And then after a pause : "I reckon I muddled it 
 up fo fair, tellin her that-a-way. Only I have no 
 other way." Then he was back seriously directing 
 the placement of his new gear. 
 
 Clell was forward checking off the stuff as it came 
 over the staging. It was a white hot morning, the 
 gulf breeze stilled; and the black gnats danced 
 through the engine-room and stung the sweating 
 fellows. I was turning aft to see what the new 
 cook had done about breakfast, as the boss outfit 
 seemed to consider me no further, when I saw Mary
 
 26o JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 signaling to me from the awninged shade of Virgil s 
 smart little cabin cruiser. "Went and stuck two 
 thousand dollars into that tub soon as I heard we d 
 won," he had told me. "I couldn t have Mary corn- 
 in down to our swamp in that old Zelie." 
 
 Mary Mason looked very comfortable in her blue- 
 trimmed sailor blouse. The breakfast things were 
 laid on a neat white table, and she had drawn some 
 purple hyacinth spikes from the canal to set it off. 
 Down in the galley a yellow boy was busied with 
 coffee and bacon. It was the first thing like a really 
 civilized meal I had seen in five months. 
 
 "It s like Virgil, isn t it?" she said. "The minute 
 I met him he began to see to me and yet he hasn t 
 spent a moment from his work, it seems. It s queer 
 the way the men all jump about for him he gets 
 things going, somehow." 
 
 "Most things," I murmured, and sampled her 
 pineapple. 
 
 She smiled in a rather wan fashion. I don t be 
 lieve she had slept well; perhaps one wouldn t trans 
 lated overnight from the Amalgamated Electric to 
 the savage morasses of John-the-Fool. "Did you 
 ever hear such frightful noises?" she went on. 
 "Mosquitoes on the screens and the boom of those
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 261 
 
 frogs and an alligator or so, and the awful owls. 
 I thought the wilderness was quiet." 
 
 "Ah, the wilderness! Somehow, we ve come to 
 love it all." 
 
 "Yes," she said absently, and looked across the 
 canal to where the clatter of hammers and the bang 
 ing of metal, and the drift of soot down on our 
 white spread told of the new attack on the man s 
 size job. "Love it?" She was curiously intent on 
 the bronzed fellow who supervised the job forward. 
 "Clell is so changed!" 
 
 "Wasn t that what was wanted? He s proved 
 himself a man. Not a whimper, not a false note. 
 Of course you couldn t expect him to love Virgil." 
 
 "But that wasn t what I meant. I thought he " 
 
 "You thought he would still be tagging at your 
 skirts." I went on attacking the eggs and bacon. 
 "Well, you see a new man, don t you? He s got 
 some of Virgil s stuff, despite himself. The wilder 
 ness and Laure." 
 
 "The wilderness, dear Doctor Dick," she went on 
 quite humbly, "was up there with me. I thought 
 I could forget more easily." She added with some 
 rising indignation. "You and Clell are both abomi 
 nable ! Virgil, of course, is his own dear, grim self
 
 262 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 a pure sentimentalist, pathetically in love, at last, 
 with this island girl." 
 
 "And she with your young man who is chival 
 rously attracted," I said with brutal expediency. 
 
 "Virgil moons and moons when he ought to 
 steal her!" 
 
 "Mary," I retorted, "you are an utter barbarian ! 
 Imagine any one stealing you!" 
 
 "Ah, if one could! It must be splendid. It 
 wouldn t be business but what fun !" 
 
 "See here, this will never do. This absurd island 
 is bother enough as it is. The baron has medieval- 
 ized everything and every one except Virgil. And 
 Papa Prosper. He waves his rooster cap, and at 
 once Laure imagines she will marry a duke, and 
 Clell imagines he loves her, and the swamp niggers 
 believe in a buried treasure ship, and Mangy sees a 
 ghost-head sticking out of the grass. And I the 
 practical person ah, me! One time I kissed her!" 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "It was part of her education." 
 
 "Indeed ?" Mary mused. 
 
 "And Clell is crazy about her. It s his chivalrous 
 idea about her wrongs. And she s extraordinarily 
 good-looking." 
 
 "Yes?" continued Mary.
 
 It was like a bit of pageant
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 263 
 
 "I saw her once do a dance in a rare old gown 
 she had before it was dynamited one night with me 
 in the canal. It was an evening when the baron 
 had roared quite valiantly over his third bottle, after 
 Allesjandro had played all the Rigolctto music, and 
 had demanded of Laure that she show the bald- 
 headed doctor what a great lady she could be. So 
 she did some sort of a Creole dance, and I swear it 
 was like a big pageant the smoky old rafters of his 
 shack, hung with red peppers and dried things, the 
 old fellow in his red robe and with his pipe and 
 sword and feather." 
 
 "Doctor Dick," said Mary absently, "you d better 
 go north." 
 
 I was trying to shake Mary up out of her hyper- 
 civilized complacence about love and all that sort of 
 thing. It was all right for me, but in Mary ? I went 
 on with praise of Laure Drouillot; but Mary seemed 
 disinterested. Clell and Virgil came on the Seabird 
 for lunch despite their grim intent on the dredge 
 boat and its mechanics. 
 
 And while we were at it, a grotesque figure 
 pushed its way out of the saw-grass by the boat s 
 rail. 
 
 "Done come!" it quavered, and we saw it was 
 Mangy! He splashed out of that noon heat gasp-
 
 264 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ing, rolling his eyes. "Dey done use me mean, 
 Docteh! Yes, seh. Ah come back fo mah job. 
 Dem old pirate haids dey ain t nuffin but ha d 
 work!" 
 
 We got that disillusioned and emaciated cook 
 on board. He was a sight after that half-day fight 
 ing his way a mile through the morasses of John- 
 the-Fool to the canal. Williams immaculate yel 
 low boy from N Awlyins eyed the mud that dripped 
 from him on the clean white deck with vast dis 
 favor. Mangy hastened to grasp my hand and dis 
 tributed more upon it and me. 
 
 Then his eyes rolled mysteriously: "Dey done 
 got it!" 
 
 "Got what?" Cell said sharply. 
 
 "Dat big hide-up. Eve since Crump, dat bad 
 niggeh, gave me er sign to quit you, dey had me 
 diggin . Dey made me wu k all night dey lammed 
 me wid pistols, and dis mawnin I got out but I 
 seen em yes, seh !" 
 
 "What did you leave us for ?" 
 
 "Ah got mah sign dat s it. Crump and Hogjaw 
 dey put dat mark on yo drudge. Dat ol pirate 
 voodoo, it chase all Marse Virgil s niggehs when 
 they see it. Anyhow, dey d killed me sho , if Ah 
 hadn t done come in. Dey showed me de haid Ol
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 265 
 
 Armand Drouillot s haid. Sho did. So I had to 
 come in to dem, and Crump he beat me up." 
 
 We looked at that lamentable cook in stupefied 
 amazement. He looked back in the dim water-aisles 
 of John-the-Fool in terror that was actually hu 
 morous. And our northern Mary regarded him 
 standing there, holding his rag of a hat, and with 
 not so much shirt on him as would clean out my 
 pipe bowl, with the look of one who has discovered 
 something new in comic opera. 
 
 "Did you suppose such people existed ?" she mur 
 mured. 
 
 Virgil sat down on the cushions, and motioned to 
 the yellow boy. "Get him something to eat and 
 rummage a shirt if you can." Then he turned to 
 Mangy: "Now tell us something we can under 
 stand start at the beginnin ." 
 
 Mangy rubbed his black paws and licked his 
 chops. Then he rubbed the welts on his woolly skull 
 where the renegades had mauled him. "Dey used to 
 skun outen de swamp and up to mah window on 
 dat drudge, an leave de signs. Sometimes Ah find 
 er little bone on mah bed, er a piece o bresh on de 
 kitchen flo . Sometime er piece o paper tacked on 
 de wall. Dey put de sign on it." 
 
 "What sign?"
 
 266 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Mangy swallowed helplessly. "Oh, sho white 
 folks neve unnerstand ! Me Ah m er swamp nig- 
 geh, an Ah unnerstand. Ah neve say nuffin to yo , 
 Marse Virgil. Den de las night dey show me de 
 haid, and Ah surrendeh. Ah come in and ast em 
 whaffor? What yo want wid me? And dey mek 
 me dig in dat ol slave ship yes, seh! And dey 
 got it!" 
 
 "Got what?" said Clell impatiently. 
 
 "De hide-up. What dat ol baron he been hang- 
 in eround fo an a scoutin an a plunderin in de 
 swamp fo fo years." 
 
 "The baron ! He got it and what was it ?" 
 
 "Ah dunno. Dey keep me and Hogjaw at de 
 pump all night, an dey blow de shells out o dat ol 
 slave ship. And de baron sit dere on his luggah 
 and watch wid a gun. And Allesjandro he watch 
 wid a gun. Crump and Doc Fortune, dey dig and 
 hist, and dig and hist in dat old ship cabin, and dey 
 get de hide-up on dat luggah dis mawnin . Dat girl 
 she sit watchin , all a-time watchin . Dey knew yo 
 men was close and dey ready to shoot all right if 
 anybody come plunderin round." 
 
 "Can you beat it ?" murmured Clell. "And Laure 
 in with them?"
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 267 
 
 "But what on earth did they get?" Mary said in 
 terestedly. 
 
 "Dat ol baron, he know! He been one of dem 
 ol Armand s men dat used to smuggle niggehs 
 in fo de wah. He done come back ca se he know!" 
 
 All the baron s former moonings about Isle 
 Bonne s mystic treasure came back to me ; the folly 
 with which he had filled Laure s mind. I, too, was 
 muttering : "What on earth did they get ?" 
 
 "Gold?"putinClell. 
 
 Mangy rolled his gaunt eyes. "Ah dunno. Didn t 
 let me see." 
 
 "Go on," continued Virgil patiently. "Then 
 what?" 
 
 "Dey hist a big trunk on dat Manilaman s luggah. 
 Den dey show me de haid. Sho it was a haid 
 made outen an old stump all painted up with eyes 
 like saucers starin so. Dey used to snuck up and 
 show dat to de niggehs and dey scar em outen de 
 swamp." 
 
 "But the hide-up, Mangy go on about it." 
 
 Mangy wiped his lank jaw. He had been beaten 
 with the butt of a gun and was half starved besides. 
 
 "Go on," commanded Virgil. "When you re 
 through you can go in the galley and eat. And work
 
 c68 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 to-morrow. I ought to fire you, but I won t. This 
 is mighty inter-estin ." 
 
 "Well, Marse Virgil, dey done gwine away wid 
 dat hide-up." 
 
 "Away?" 
 
 "Dey had a fight afteh dey blowed up dat old 
 hulk and got dat box on boa d. Done had a big 
 fight dem niggers and de Manilaman. I skun out 
 in de swamp so dey couldn t fight me, and when 
 I saw las dey was polin de luggah out Bayou 
 L Ourse fo de lake." 
 
 Virgil s chair came down interestedly. "Yes 
 who was on board ?" 
 
 "Dat baron and Prosper s girl and Allesjandro, 
 all I see." 
 
 The boss straightened up and looked across at his 
 swarm of busy mechanics on the dredge boat. Afar 
 up the canal came the whistle of the tow steamer 
 moving the stuff in for the new invasion of the Isle 
 Bonne swamps. But the eyes were fixed northward 
 to the forest wall. 
 
 "Coin ?" he muttered. "The baron and her?" 
 
 Then with a motion he sent the forlorn cook to 
 the galley. He turned to Mary seriously. "If yo 
 was as plumb crazy about any one as I am would 
 you chase after em, and commit crimes fo em?"
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 269 
 
 "I would," announced Mary, "as sure as can be!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "High crimes and misdemeanors !" 
 
 "That don t sound like you, Mary, and I knew 
 you since you was knee-high to a grasshopper back 
 in the short-grass country." 
 
 She pulled her wide Panama more over her eyes 
 and turned to him with decision. "Oh, I know! 
 Doctor Dick doesn t think it in me either. But I 
 tell you now, Virgil, if you love that girl you must 
 stop her." 
 
 "She sho hates me enough now." 
 
 "She loves you." 
 
 Just then the dredge engines which had been idle 
 all these hot and heartbreaking months started up 
 with a fearful clatter of chains and drums, for Big 
 Jim s try-out. One could not hear a thing. But 
 Virgil was staring at Mary. 
 
 "What s that!" 
 
 "I say she loves you." 
 
 The Texan suddenly made a motion to the en 
 gineer across the narrow channel from our deck. 
 Then he called : 
 
 "Seh ! Stop that machine !" 
 
 The long crane ceased its swing, and the big clam 
 shell closed its jaws on the empty air above the saw-
 
 270 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 grass. The boss turned to Mary once more, and 
 his own jaws set more grimly. 
 
 "See here, I m stoppin the job just at the jump- 
 off I ve waited six years fo . Stoppin it just to 
 hear you, Mary. Say that again !" 
 
 "She loves you." 
 
 Clell was listening distantly from the stern seat 
 cushions. Virgil had taken Mary s arm ; I think he 
 was closing on it rather tightly. 
 
 "If I thought so, I d tear this swamp wide open. 
 Neve saw a chance neve saw a sign of it." 
 
 "Oh, you foolish man there are a dozen ! I tell 
 you what you must do now you must steal her 
 to-day this very night, and make her tell it." 
 
 Across from us the grimy- faced men were stand 
 ing about expectantly. 
 
 "What s the matter, there man?" called Big Jim 
 impatiently. The boss did not see or hear him, 
 apparently. 
 
 "Come on, now," went on Mary s cool voice. 
 "Crimes and misdemeanors. I I m with you, 
 Virgil." 
 
 "Mary !" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Doctor Dick," she answered firmly, "you ve 
 known me twenty-seven years, and Clell for ten, and 
 neither of you ever suspected me of having any red
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 271 
 
 blood. Her piratical ancestors ? Why, who knows ? 
 I, too, may have been bred from the buccaneers?" 
 
 My young man under the stern awnings, was lis 
 tening with new vast attention. She gave him as 
 barbaric a glance as any five-thousand-a-year-em- 
 ployee of a corporation can and he smoked away 
 with composure. Mary s new young man ah, me ! 
 Somehow I had a sudden idea that Mary had fallen 
 madly in love with this new, bronzed, hard-handed 
 and swaggering young man of the outdoors. Now, 
 of course, it was plain why she wanted Laure 
 Drouillot kidnaped and safely out of the way! 
 
 "Extraordinary!" I gasped to myself. "Just like 
 Mary committing her crimes in a wholly cool, effi 
 cient and common-sense manner !" Then I sighed : 
 "Ah, the times, ah, the manners! Where are our 
 pirates of yesterday ?" 
 
 But she was turning to Virgil with intentness. 
 
 "Of course she ll flare up, and all that. But Vir 
 gil, come on, now must I expound it to you ? Can t 
 you see she loves you ?" 
 
 "Hold on," he muttered, "somethin s goin to blow 
 up on this mud-hook in a minute, if the pressure 
 isn t relieved ! Yes, seh, tell me !" 
 
 "She s afraid of herself when she s with you. 
 You had her beaten long ago and never knew it.
 
 272 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She risks her life for your gamble here but she 
 won t give in, never never! And still she knows 
 you care for her that s the woman in it. Oh, I 
 know we can t say the word when they turn from 
 us. It s too deep in us." 
 
 "Mary" 
 
 "And now she s going going away, defeated 
 with that silly old chap. And maybe they ve got a 
 treasure who knows ? and it s yours." 
 
 "Treasueh nothing. I knew a man in Terrebonne 
 who dug fo three years and he got somethin , too. 
 Box of rusty ship-chain and chills and feveh. Big 
 Jim s got fou treasueh maps he s collected from 
 different cajuns. I seen mo hide-ups on this south 
 coast than you can count. You cain t inter-est me 
 in treasueh except what I get out of this land with 
 a tractor plow when the ditches are in." 
 
 "Well," Mary said calmly, "there is Laure isn t 
 she enough ?" 
 
 He jumped up with something like a whoop. His 
 arm shot out with the gesture that the boss used to 
 signal the engineman above the roar of the drums. 
 Big Jim turned to his levers and the chains and 
 cables groaned on their new gear the man s job 
 was on once more. 
 
 "By five o clock," shouted Big Jim, "she ll be cut-
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 273 
 
 tin righto! I promised that, didn t I, Williams? 
 Watch my smoke!" 
 
 Williams did not hear. He and Mary were talk 
 ing pointedly, and when Mary went back over the 
 gangway to the white cabin boat, the boss followed 
 her in more of a daze than I had ever seen him. 
 
 Then presently he came leaping across the plank 
 and was back to his bunk-house behind the dredge- 
 boat, and calling to the bull cook as he went. 
 
 "Get that hot water, boy! Yes, seh and them 
 sto clothes! Lay em out in the faster than any 
 yelleh boy eve moved in this swamp !" 
 
 "What s the matter ?" I inquired innocently. 
 
 He gave me a hard look as he dodged in. "Doc- 
 teh Dick, you re a no-account son-of-a-gun! You 
 been hangin around here since April, and it took 
 Mary to start somethin . Mary you might have 
 known it would take Mary !" 
 
 I left him in his hot little room, with the boy hop 
 ping for things this way and that, and went to the 
 Seabird. Mary sat quite calmly on the stern seat 
 cushions. 
 
 "We ought to put you quite out of this," she said 
 with sudden severity. 
 
 "Out of what ? And what have I done ?" 
 
 "Nothing. That s your infamy. Nothing but
 
 274 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 drooled away over your pipe and let things run on. 
 Virgil poor chap, you might have made him see 
 long ago !" 
 
 "Did you expect me to assist at any such wild ex 
 pedition as getting a chap married or that sort of 
 thing? Not remotely. I would as soon see a man 
 into a loblolly." 
 
 "And what s that?" 
 
 "It s a hole with no bottom. Clell is in one now. 
 And Virgil you re pushing him into another one 
 only worse." 
 
 "You have done wretchedly, Doctor Dick. I m 
 not certain I love you any more. You ve been a 
 traitor even to the land company. And Virgil s 
 affair" 
 
 "And yours, my dear " 
 
 She refused to advert to any possible affair of 
 hers. I went down from that frigid area of the 
 stern deck and filled my pipe out of the jar on Vir 
 gil s cabin table. Then I read a current review lan 
 guidly it was the first I had seen in months, and 
 the affairs of the world appeared incomprehensible 
 mere piffle from some other planet. 
 
 I tried to be indifferent to this piffle of Mary s and 
 Virgil s. Even when Virgil and his close shave 
 came on board followed by the yelleh boy and two
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 275 
 
 others of the crew, I refused interest to them. One 
 was a white man, a small, wiry, narrow-eyed chap, 
 and the other a big black fellow; and I guessed the 
 first to be one of Williams gun-toters from the 
 river, and the last to be a deep swamp nigger who 
 knew Isle Bonne s intricate waterways, and was 
 emancipated from ghost haids and such. 
 
 "Sho, boss," I heard him say, when we had turned 
 and were going back along the channel. "Ah can 
 go in deh. And dat Manilaman he ll have to wait 
 fo a tide to get his luggah into de lake. An a full 
 moon tide he ll get afteh midnight and no sooneh. 
 If he hasn t poled out now." 
 
 Mary and Virgil talked earnestly on the stern 
 seats. When I sauntered aft to get the breeze and 
 less smell of the motor below, they ceased, and the 
 conversation dribbled to sunsets and mosquitoes. It 
 was nine miles to the open lakes and for seven of 
 them they did not notice me. The yelleh boy got 
 more consideration. We passed the string of work- 
 boats at the pumping-plant site where already the 
 men were cleaning out the abandoned concrete foun 
 dations of the dam to build the higher frames, and 
 young Ryan, the new structural engineer in charge, 
 hailed the boss with a friendly message to the sten 
 ographer in the city offices of the land company.
 
 276 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Virgil shook his head. "Not goin out front this 
 trip. Goin in deep!" He laughed, and the motor 
 throbbed on out into a sea of gold where the level 
 sunrays lay upon the tidal lakes. Eastward and 
 south the cloud-splendor of the hurricane months lay 
 over the gulf; the heat was a thing that crept to 
 your bones in that breezeless air. 
 
 "He ll get no wind till mornin ," muttered Virgil. 
 "Treasueh ! A-runnin off with ou treasueh. Why, 
 the old coyote !" 
 
 "Which?" I ventured, and from the silence I 
 felt out of it. 
 
 "If there had been any decent place to put you, 
 we would not have brought you along," returned 
 Mary, at length. "You re not a bit of use.* 
 
 Still one had one s pipe. I did not need their 
 confidences. 
 
 We turned the long marsh point that marked the 
 easternmost reach of Isle Bonne s salt grass. The 
 wooded cheniere lay six miles to westward in that 
 molten glow of sun and lake. The big black, who 
 knew the shoals and sand spits, ran in shoreward 
 at half speed, and then we chugged along slowly, 
 muffled down, coming up under the first of the 
 woods where the shell reefs arose. Isle Bonne s 
 single house still lay two miles about the point of
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 277 
 
 cypress. A glorious opal twilight was on us now; 
 with a moon rimming the storm-clouds eastward. 
 
 The anchor chain went down and the Seabird 
 swung in the slow tide. They would not take a 
 chance on running farther and being discovered. 
 So we dined under the awnings, the weazened little 
 deputy with us, and the black man in the galley with 
 the boy. 
 
 "There s a good many things you can get the 
 baron on, Mr. Williams," said the gun-toting deputy. 
 "Smugglin , piracy, resistin an officer, grand lar 
 ceny and " 
 
 "The old dog hasn t done any of em yet" 
 
 "He will before we get through with him," an 
 swered Daggetts pleasantly. "We ll plant enough 
 on him to stick." 
 
 "I don t want him. I wouldn t load up with him 
 fo a farm. All I want is " he broke off, eying Mr. 
 Daggetts furtively he was not the fellow to take 
 the whole world into his confidence. He looked at 
 me quizzically, and then at Clell who had idled aft 
 for the hour obviously occupied with his thoughts. 
 Virgil went on in a lower tone to Mary : "No man- 
 neh of use to tell this fel-lo, Daggetts, that we re 
 kidnapin a lady. Sho , he thinks he s out to gun 
 those bad niggers. Hogjaw s a gin-and-laudanum
 
 278 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 nigger and got a levee record, and Daggetts is wish 
 ful fo to meet him." 
 
 He turned to take the wheel from his black helms 
 man. But he beckoned Mary again to his side. 
 "You goin to get me in bad, Mary she ll sho 
 hate the air I breathe after this." 
 
 "It s your only gamble," she retorted. "Come, be 
 a sport." 
 
 I went back to the stern awnings wondering what 
 had got into Mary, the complacent "Sport!" Clell 
 was finishing his cigar. 
 
 "What do you think of it," I asked, "as a show 
 down?" 
 
 "He loses. Granting that he finds her. You see, 
 he s got the island, and she can t forgive that. He 
 can t come to her now she ll not listen. She s too 
 mightily proud, and if he steals her according to 
 Mary s idiotic idea, she ll hate him more than be 
 fore." 
 
 "Tut-tut!" I answered. "That is what you wish 
 and the wish is father to the thought. And you, 
 my boy how about yourself?" 
 
 "I " he said placidly, "give him his chance I 
 told him I d play right, you know. But there s 
 Mary I don t understand what s got into her." 
 
 I left him with a suspicion that after all he was
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 279 
 
 troubled by that. Stupid, that he could not see ! I 
 concluded they were both getting about what they 
 deserved out of their first egregious quarrel. Mary s 
 young man was seriously independent, that was 
 plain and she saw it. It was well enough for her ; 
 she ought to understand that with men, love is a 
 thing which, if they do not meet on one corner, they 
 will on the next. 
 
 Octave, the black steersman, held far in the lake 
 when we turned out of the canal. Off the eastern 
 most point of Isle Bonne s marshy shore the shoals 
 ran far, and it was quite sundown when we were 
 able to run northward. Octave held his palm to 
 the southward. "Air s stirrin , Misteh Williams. If 
 they get a breeze to-night, look out. That luggeh ll 
 outsail and motor-boat you got." 
 
 "It s the hurricane month and afternoon squalls. 
 They ll get no wind until to-morrow after nine 
 o clock." 
 
 But the south coast black shook his head : 
 "Wind s movin somewhe ." 
 
 Daggetts, from the stump of a mast forward on 
 the cabin, kept a lookout. It was almost dusk when 
 he called Williams from the wheel. 
 
 "She s out lyin becalmed in the flood-tide, and 
 it s movin him northerly. We better run behind
 
 280 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 the point and lay till it s dark if you want to sur 
 prise em." 
 
 We all saw now, against the last glow, the outline 
 of Allesjandro s great red sail. It was two miles 
 westward. The doughty baron and his man had 
 got well cleared of the forest channel by means of 
 pole and oars, it seemed. And now the air was 
 stirring faintly from the southeast. The black splen 
 dor of the daily squall clouds still lay there over 
 the gulf. 
 
 "We better lie low until late," Daggetfs counseled. 
 "If he picks up a breeze, and knows we re after him, 
 he can run for the west ard passes and into the Gulf 
 of Mexico. That little Manilaman knows every 
 rod of shore and shoal, and he s got a weather boat, 
 too." 
 
 "How about the reef off the cypress point this 
 side of Prosper s?" Virgil asked his man. 
 
 "We c n lay under it for the flood tide and they 
 won t see us. We draw three feet fo*, boss we 
 betteh lay up than take a chance o goin aground 
 and have that Manilaman laugh." 
 
 The boss was reluctant. Not that he had any 
 idea what he was to do. In this criminal proceed 
 ing I saw now that he was completely at the com 
 mand of Mary, the super-civilized. 
 
 "The was a fight," he murmured. "That s what
 
 THE BIG HIDE-UP 281 
 
 sticks me that yarn of Mangy s. And the little 
 girl the last he saw sittin on her great-grand 
 dad s buccaneer boat with her gun. And lookin 
 pale-like and sad, Mangy said." 
 
 "Did she? Well, she was escaping her troubles 
 and you." 
 
 "Sho ! Mary, sometimes I believe you ! All right 
 we ll lay up till the tide s filled. Then we ll come 
 down on em, by Mighty throw a rope about the 
 mast of that luggeh, throw the Manilaman ove - 
 boa d and then yo listen to me Mary! I ll give 
 her some talk and the whole hell-a-mile world can 
 stand the and hear it !" 
 
 We anchored in that warm dark under the cypress 
 point and at last the shape of the lugger grew indis 
 tinct, faded into the star-strewn horizon, while to 
 the south the wink of the gulf storm showed now 
 and then, Isle Bonne s white shell shore. 
 
 Clell and I sat morosely apart over our tobacco. 
 The conspirators seemed to have small use for us. 
 
 "Doctor Dick," muttered my companion after 
 a while, "who d have thought anything of the sort in 
 Mary ? I didn t suppose she had the stuff ! Not that 
 I care now particularly." 
 
 Another Barataria mosquito had me on the nose ; 
 I refused to discuss affairs of the heart with him 
 or any one.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 
 
 SOME time after midnight, Octave, the big black, 
 who had been sent in the dingey to the cypress 
 point that he might keep watch on the lugger when 
 the light failed us, returned cautiously. 
 
 "Dat Manilaman, he went asho and Ah reckon 
 de old man wif him. And dey reefed deh sail down, 
 and none o dem is on watch." 
 
 "And the tide?" muttered Virgil, who had sat 
 staring into the darkness most of the long hours. 
 
 "Fou* feet ove dat reef we can skun it. Only 
 we betteh pole an drift, and pole an drift twel we 
 close down on dem. Dat Crump will shoot quick." 
 
 Mr. Daggetts yawned from his cushions. Con 
 versation had long since failed us. Virgil had vainly 
 tried to have Mary retire to her little forward cabin ; 
 she was calmly interested in the next move. "You 
 see it was my idea, after all," she answered me, 
 when I had doubted the expediency of having her 
 along. And Clell, on whom a watchful moodiness 
 had fallen, since he had guessed the plot of the ex- 
 
 282
 
 BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 283 
 
 pedition, evinced no interest in Miss Mason s doings 
 one way or the other. 
 
 A few whispered words, and the Seablrd was 
 shoved over the long sand reef that ran from the 
 cypress point two miles into the lake. The breeze 
 still held gently from the southeast and would bear 
 us with the flood tide, directly down upon Allesjan- 
 dro s craft lying all unsuspectingly in the channel a 
 half-mile off Prosper s cove. 
 
 "They re going to leave, all right," said Virgil, 
 "or they d never laid off shore so far with the 
 squalls blowin around. It s mighty poor anchor 
 age out there. But they don t want to be caught 
 in close on an ebb-tide if they had to get out in a 
 hurry." 
 
 He was pole-walking the little cruiser along one 
 side, and Octave on the other. She slid easily along, 
 only grating her keel twice on the bars. The pole- 
 runners moved in silence, and the cloud-wrapt heav 
 ens favored us. The moon was rising, but so far it 
 threw nothing save a curious web of light that was 
 more concealing to us than real darkness. The dim 
 shore points became mysterious blurs, and through 
 this enveloping distortion we floated in a profound 
 stillness. Virgil had cautioned us not to talk, and 
 the four of us stared into that illusion of moonlight,
 
 284 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 with no sound coming to us save the drip of water 
 from the pole-runners and the soft shuffle of their 
 feet along the gunwales. 
 
 It seemed an hour of this acute waiting before 
 I heard the black man whisper in the silence. He 
 had been keeping the little cruiser broadside on in 
 the sweep of the tide over the shallows, but now he 
 held her stern in with the drag-hook so that she 
 came head-on with the run of water. And there, 
 straight ahead, I saw the lugger riding, her red sail 
 at a careless half-reef, without lights, apparently 
 untenanted. 
 
 "By Mighty," Virgil muttered, "another moment 
 and we d rode across her chains!" He was laugh 
 ing now with an exultation of adventure new to 
 him. Men he had crossed and fought, and tide and 
 flood and storm and fortune, but for love of a 
 woman, never. He had whispered as much to me 
 on this night, with a return of his old shy confi 
 dence, and a knowing shrug toward Mary. "If she 
 isn t right, why I m makin a big horse-play of it 
 all, Docteh Dick !" 
 
 Octave and the boss conferred a momenf for 
 ward; then I saw the black man slip over the side, 
 stealthily down in the water, and swim off with a 
 trailing line. We drifted silently past the lugger,
 
 BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 285 
 
 and then I heard a soft grating and knew the swim 
 mer had fastened a grapple low on her anchor chain. 
 Daggetts, the little deputy, watched interestedly, sit 
 ting cross-legged on the cabin top with his short 
 shotgun across his knees. He mumbled his disap 
 pointment to me. "Might as well have left me in 
 camp. Ain t a nigger on her no one else that I 
 can see." 
 
 Virgil was sheering the launch off so that she did 
 not grate along the Good Child s gunwale. Then 
 he was across and tiptoeing gently to the open hatch 
 in the midship section. The cabin of the lugger was 
 an extremely low affair, the rounding roof hardly 
 rising from the deck. The boss was stooping to 
 peer within. Then he was listening. 
 
 He came back to us and whispered. 
 
 "It s strange. She s there, but no one else. The 
 bar is drawn across the bunk and her scarf that 
 little lace thing she used to wear, remembeh? It s 
 lying on the edge of the bunk yes, seh and she s 
 under the bar asleep. I I," he murmured softly, 
 "can hear her breathe." 
 
 He was laughing gently, but aglow with excite 
 ment. 
 
 "They, the rest of em, must be asho getting 
 ready fo the start. They got a lot of new plunder
 
 286 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 down in the cabin, but I cain .t see exactly. Now, 
 you fel-los start that engine half -speed. I ll stay 
 on this boat. I I want to see her awaken." 
 
 And he went back to peer within at her vague 
 form in the darkness. She would be face to face 
 with him, now in his power, as he wished, and she 
 would have to listen to his victoriousness, whatever 
 the issue. 
 
 When the launch slid away and the line tightened 
 we could still see him staring within, and he seemed 
 to be laughing but awed by his new adventure. In 
 all his fighting life never had he turned aside for 
 an affair of women; he was swept to a great ex- 
 ultance by its chances. 
 
 The Seabird drew on at half-speed, the throb of 
 her motor deepening but muffled as the tug of the 
 heavier craft made her labor. Then the Good Child 
 came on astern, and we lost Virgil and his lone 
 watch of his revered shrine. 
 
 Once above the hum of the engine I thought I 
 heard a faint shout from Isle Bonne s dim shore; 
 then we hurried on. The deputy got up and 
 stretched his legs. 
 
 "Well, what did Williams bring Die for ? I come 
 for bad niggers, and he gives me a boat ride and a
 
 BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 287 
 
 few mosquitoes and it s a fine night for stars." 
 He went forward to the steersman with his com 
 plaints. 
 
 Clell came to sit musingly with us, looking astern 
 now and then at the stolen lugger and its freight. 
 
 "All the same, when she awakens, I wouldn t care 
 about facing her, and be Williams." 
 
 "I think," said Mary decisively, "when we get far 
 enough from Isle Bonne so the baron can not pos 
 sibly interfere, we shall cut the tow line and leave 
 them to their own affairs although it would be 
 worth years of life to hear Virgil tell her he loves 
 her. But it would be a shame. I really think we 
 shall cut the line. He s a good sailor, and she? 
 well, she can t escape him, you see." 
 
 "Yes," murmured Clell, "she ll jump overboard. 
 Oh, you don t know her. She can swim from here 
 to John-the-Fool ! Only the sharks " 
 
 "She ll never get a chance," retorted Mary. 
 "Never, Mr. Clell-the-Fool ! That is a wonderful 
 way to win a woman simply steal her as Virgil 
 did." 
 
 "Mary," gasped Clell, "why didn t you tell me 
 long ago?" 
 
 She shrugged evasively. "Oh, well! But now I
 
 288 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 see plainly that you and Doctor Dick are perfect old 
 maids. I had to come down here in my barbaric 
 Broadway fashion and start something." 
 
 "Well, I really," he went on, "would like to know 
 what you came here for ! Virgil s er romance ?" 
 
 "He never had a chance to talk to her in six 
 years she always ran away, he says." Mary thrust 
 out her firm chin at him. "And you, of course, 
 with your conceit and Doctor Dick, with his egre 
 gious cynicism, couldn t suspect how things were!" 
 
 "I suspect," I put in, "exactly how things are!" 
 
 And Mary understood me well enough; but Clell 
 never. We watched Deputy Daggetts hug his 
 shotgun and shiver in the morning damp. A film of 
 dawn hung above the banked clouds eastward. The 
 rippling fringe of the squall over the gulf had just 
 stirred our tidal lake and passed westward. A star 
 hung over the damp limp sail of the Good Child 
 as she trailed at the hundred feet of tow line. Vir 
 gil held her tiller on the course. Now and then our 
 black steersman looked back grinning; he had some 
 secret orders from the boss, but what they were I 
 knew not. 
 
 "For an adventure," I murmured, "it has been in 
 tolerably quiet. And breakfast will Virgil bring 
 the lady to breakfast? I mind me once at the bar-
 
 BREED OF THE BUCCANEERS 289 
 
 on s " but they would not let me relate again of the 
 little duck. 
 
 In the gaining dawn I began to see my compan 
 ions faces Mary s with her clear pallor and gray 
 eyes a trifle tired from the vigil ; Clell with his rug 
 ged look of hardiness and outworld freedom. Plain 
 ly there was no surrender, and the strength was his. 
 He might easily have forgotten that she ever cared 
 for him as far as I could read. And she had suf 
 fered in her wilderness up there, the wilderness of 
 the city; while he had found new freedom in his. 
 Again I caught that speechless surprise in Mary, 
 the mingled hurt pride and admiring envy that he 
 had so changed. Never had she dreamed of having 
 to fight for his regard, his loyalty, his love. That 
 any new world could come to suffice; a new ardor 
 from which she must win him back. She was not 
 used to making love; he had done all that in the 
 old days. I saw her confused dilemma so cleverly 
 concealed. She did not know how to begin with 
 him. I was enjoying it all hugely; it seemed an ex 
 cellent revenge on Mary to have her discover she 
 was not altogether indispensable to any of us. She 
 had stepped out of her exquisite and ordered world 
 of tribute and success to where the footing was not 
 so sure.
 
 290 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 And while all this was idling through my mind as 
 the pink day shouldered up against half the sky, I 
 heard an exclamation from somewhere. It seemed 
 to come out of the air, to be distant, and yet so ab 
 solutely insistent with shock and numbing surprise 
 that it arrested my mind above all the throb of our 
 engine. I looked back instinctively to that boat we 
 were towing, it could come from nowhere else. 
 
 Virgil had left his wheel and was amidships on 
 the lugger staring down in the low cabin. His at 
 titude was that of a man who had suddenly seen a 
 pit yawn before him. He was utterly speechless 
 now. Then I, too, found my question palled on my 
 lips. We all were staring without word. 
 
 Up and out of that stuffy cabin on the other boat 
 an apparition was rising, and it was not the kid 
 naped mistress of Isle Bonne. 
 
 The Baron de Vedrinnes, his rooster cap awry 
 over his red-gray shock of hair, and in his vast 
 redder robe, was yawning and looking about that 
 fair morning with the air of a man who admires 
 but who had not yet got the sleep rubbed out of his 
 eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 
 
 WE were quite too stupefied for comment. Vir 
 gil, standing within six feet of that appari 
 tion, was the first to recover. He made a down 
 ward motion of his hand to the helmsman and the 
 power was shut from the Seabird s propeller. The 
 tow-line slid to the water, and the heavier Good 
 Child floated alongside. The Texan had sat down on 
 the hatch cover and was regarding his prize. 
 
 The Baron John Bernal de Vedrinnes, one time 
 of Austria and the Louisiana Lottery Company, 
 seemed heaving a sigh of satisfaction and even com 
 prehension. He set his green cap back on his left 
 ear, and then I saw he had a fearful wound across 
 his pink head. It was bound up with a bit of lacy 
 stuff but this had fallen quite away. And now his 
 eyes went to the deck near Virgil s feet, he advanced 
 and picked up something, cocking his head sidewise 
 sorrily and yet with a great and sagacious pride. 
 
 "Ah, my good Doctor!" he roared now. "You 
 should have seen it all. One fellow clipped across 
 
 291
 
 292 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 the temple and another stuck like a pig through the 
 neck! Me I it could not have been better in my 
 days of the cuirassiers!" 
 
 He was flourishing at us the fragments of his 
 wondrous sword. I saw then the spattered blood of 
 the deck, the coaming, and the littered ropes, for the 
 day was here. He gathered the bits of steel in his 
 hand and waved them again. "And now, my friends, 
 have you breakfast anywhere about? I could sit 
 at it with appreciation. As you surprise me with 
 these attentions, I may expect your hospitality, may 
 I not?" 
 
 "The su prise," murmured Virgil, "is mutual." 
 "Doubtless." He came near our rail and then 
 perceived Mary. Blinking his old fox eyes, he gath 
 ered his vast robe and bowed and then stood erect 
 like a gorgeous, rotund totem pole in the sunrise. 
 "I am honored I am stolen, abducted made away 
 w r ith by force what an adventure to conclude with ! 
 I can relate further for my lady. I am forever turn 
 ing up in situations which cause me to suspect that 
 fortune, my good-grand-dame, is still winking her 
 eye at the world and chuckling: Ah, John Bernal! 
 In he goes by the heels deep in the jam pot. Up 
 he comes and scraping the sweetest of the sweets on 
 a bright penny that is like him. "
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 293 
 
 "What, may I ask," I put in on his braggadocio, 
 "has happened?" 
 
 "Everything everything !" 
 
 "Where," muttered Virgil, "is Laure we came 
 fo her." 
 
 "Yes ?" The baron looked at him cornerwise out 
 of an eye. "Your scoundrelly courts have decided 
 against her she has lost, and there is another dis 
 appointment for my marquise. But no matter 
 she still has me Baron John who always turns up 
 at the crux of things." 
 
 "Where is she ?" the boss retorted curtly. 
 
 The baron tapped his bandages. "If you had but 
 waited an hour, you might have seen her. Her 
 tender heart could not abide my scratches. She 
 must be taken ashore with Allesjandro to find some 
 doctor s stuff and bandages. Bah me!" He 
 slapped his wound. "What is that to me ?" 
 
 "You were going away to-day with her?" 
 
 "We awaited a wind, my friend. We were off to 
 dumfound the world. The good God would see to 
 that." He had come cockily aboard us, puffing like a 
 porpoise, and bowed again to Mary. I heard of 
 your arrival, mademoiselle it is strange how news 
 travels through our swamps but it does. Not a 
 move can one make that, I perceive, is why you are
 
 294 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 here." And he grinned, closing one shifty eye. "I 
 am honored, mademoiselle." 
 
 "I was most happily received at your island," 
 Mary answered. "And I have heard the most excel 
 lent things about you." 
 
 "I should imagine. The good doctor here," and 
 he chucked me in the ribs with his fat elbow, "trust 
 it to him. My little marquise, she can tell you ! Eh, 
 the good doctor, he is not so slow. In her exquisite 
 and happy patois she can relate" he broke off and 
 shook his head at me "ah, but I will be discreet !" 
 
 I wanted to punch him; they all looked at me with 
 new suspicion. If anything went wrong with the 
 lamentable affairs of Clell or Mary or Virgil Will 
 iams, they seemed to imagine I was at the bottom of 
 it. It is always the misfortune of the man who 
 keeps his mouth shut and refuses maudlin advice 
 to confidences. 
 
 Williams had come over now and sat down de 
 liberately across from the Baron John. I saw at 
 once he was going to have it out with him; I was 
 about to suggest something concerning laying the 
 cloth for breakfast here instead of in the stuffy little 
 cabin, when Virgil began, after his long measuring 
 of his enemy.
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 295 
 
 "I want to know," he said, "just what you did 
 with her?" 
 
 "I could answer better, my friend," retorted the 
 baron, "were I back at Isle Bonne instead of out 
 here in mid-lake." 
 
 "Is she there?" 
 
 "As you have stolen the only means she had of 
 getting away she undoubtedly is." 
 
 The Texan motioned again to his engine-man. 
 "Put her about, Octave run for the cheniere. 
 Only," he looked at the baron, hardening his eyes, 
 "I have a notion to maroon you on this shell reef. 
 Just one thing prevents me and that is to know 
 what part you are playing in her affairs. And what 
 you have in that lugger. The s a box of plunder 
 and you were making away with it." 
 
 "I? That was the last I thought of! You have 
 done the making away, messieur. My little mar 
 quise we were to leave only at our pleasure with 
 dignity and without waiting for your eviction. 
 Ah, this last night, she was weeping as she went 
 back through the moonlight to her island. I can 
 see her, my friends standing upright in the skiff 
 as Allesjandro pulled the oars saying farewell, for 
 she would not return again."
 
 296 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Virgil was looking at the blue wall of cypress 
 over the rags of mist lifting from the lake. 
 Far beyond Isle Bonne a tremor of smoke went to 
 the sky and spread slowly. There his machine was 
 grinding on at the man s size job, and he was here 
 listening to all this chatter from the fustian knight. 
 
 "She would never have left," returned Virgil 
 slowly, "if it hadn t been fo you. We d have com 
 promised this case five years ago, if it hadn t been 
 fo all the foolishness you put in her head. You 
 kept her in a dream, and neve could she see us 
 right." 
 
 "I have made her little world bright with fancies. 
 I have made her feel and see yes, dream if you 
 will what would have been forever beyond her. 
 Ah, what she is, I made of her! I am the fool, 
 then am I? Very well, then, my friend, I am 
 Baron John of the Fool s Island, and I have built a 
 soul while you were digging a ditch." 
 
 The boss sighed patiently. "Well, no mo*. I ex- 
 paict the s other knights than you in the world. I 
 reckon the s other fighters. And that stuff in the 
 the plunder from the deep swamp whatever it is, it 
 is not yours. It was hers by all rights, if you are 
 tellin truth of it. But now it s ours by a better
 
 IN THE FACE OE FAILURE 297 
 
 right. You understand it s part of Isle Bonne, my 
 friend?" 
 
 The old knight shrugged. "You are entirely wel 
 come. In the hold of my man s boat is a ship s 
 chest exactly as we found it." He slipped a 
 lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred it, tasted 
 with relish. "Entirely yours, my friend I have 
 no more use for it than the carcass of a man from 
 which the soul is vanished." 
 
 I could not make him out. That gross bundle 
 of a man with the face of a Caesar. In a fashion 
 he seemed stunned, and airily concealing it. I 
 attributed this to his sore wounds which he would 
 make light of. 
 
 "Your coffee, mademoiselle," he murmured to 
 Mary, "is excellent My man, Allesjandro, can 
 surpass it but a trifle, but that trifle pardon me 
 be it coffee, or a woman, or a fight, or an effulgence 
 of the soul that trifle, my friends by which one 
 thing surpasses another is the only thing worth 
 living for. I know I have followed trifles a life 
 time." 
 
 I feared he was in mood for one of his hour- 
 long preachments such as I had listened to of nights 
 in his forest lodge, but now he sat back pensive-
 
 298 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 ly and watched the Scabird slipping into the cove 
 before Papa Prosper s. There was no sign of life, 
 the gray square house on stilts was so quiet that 
 one could hear the droning bees behind it in the 
 wild sweet wet garden. The men made fast and 
 we got out. Then I saw old Prosper s thin figure 
 on his gallerie. He held his inevitable newspaper 
 and was wiping his great spectacles, and then made 
 a gesture of welcome. 
 
 "She sleeps mon chere," he said gently. "It is 
 lak one s heart breaks. One great thing she dream, 
 messieurs but no mo ." 
 
 The others were going along the tiny wharf 
 toward him when the baron touched my sleeve. 
 "A moment Doctor, you and our friend. As he 
 speaks of treasure, and his new-made titles, let 
 him have the thing." 
 
 We followed him aboard the Good Child and in 
 to the low-roofed space. The baron pulled aside 
 a piece of sail-cloth, and there was a rude chest of 
 thick strips of wood banded with rusty iron per 
 haps four feet long by two wide. A mere, rough 
 old ship s chest which had a lead lining that had 
 now been rent asunder by axes and had here and 
 there, a spatter of blood where the renegade and 
 disappointed blacks had fought the baron over it
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 299 
 
 The old man pointed to the lid of wood and sheet 
 lead. 
 
 "Throw it back," our host said : "You see I have 
 the key it has been in my possession for fifty-four 
 years, but of course it was quite useless last night 
 even had I been permitted to use it." 
 
 We looked at him in some astonishment. His airy 
 pretense was quite gone; he was smiling with a 
 brave sadness. 
 
 Then Virgil, bending, threw back the heavy and 
 rotted slab of the treasure box; the ragged seal of 
 inner lead came with it. We looked, inhaling the 
 dry dead odor of musty cloth and wormy wood 
 and corroded metal. Within that narrow leaded 
 space was an opened case elegantly inlaid with 
 pearl, within which was a pair of dueling pistols, 
 beautiful weapons of a period of the 305, along 
 with their loader and percussion box. And a tar 
 nished candlestick, a dull brass ship s compass, a 
 mass of rotted woven stuff, and a pair of molded 
 boots, high and fine of leather and ornamentation. 
 Not a thing of value beyond the curio store; mere 
 ly the stuff you may see any day in the antique shops 
 of Royal Street in New Orleans; which has come 
 down from the times of the grandissimes of French 
 Louisiana.
 
 3 oo JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 "There is nothing here of note," I muttered. 
 
 "Exactly." The Baron John raised his sore arm 
 to his bruised head. "And what there is, I put 
 there." 
 
 "You!" 
 
 "I, messieur. It was in 1853. ^ was second in 
 command on the Petrel. It was Armand Drouillot 
 and I who ran her into John-the-Fool cove on a 
 high tide to escape the English sloop-of-war who 
 were lying out of Caminda Pass for the slave- 
 traders. Do you remember the October of that 
 year ? the hurricane that all but destroyed the aris 
 tocracy of French Louisiana gathered at its water 
 ing place on Last Island? Well, we got the fringe 
 of it here to eastward enough it was for the Black 
 Petrel she went hard into the reef at the edge of 
 Isle Bonne woods and the marsh channel filled be 
 hind her. Armand, the old hawk, and myself took 
 to the trees and made our way to his brother Pierre s 
 house where now the ancient chimneys stand in 
 the prairie. The crew were drowned or scattered, 
 the survivors doubtless hanged the world over later, 
 for few there were who did not deserve it. But 
 Armand and I came back when Pierre s house went 
 in the sea that rose over the isle Pierre, the old 
 burgher, had escaped, and I recall the glee with
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 301 
 
 which Armand plundered his strong box and carried 
 off the records." The old man paused and watch 
 ed us cunningly : "Can you guess now what I have 
 hunted for these four years the fortune of my 
 little marquise ?" 
 
 I shook my head; Virgil merely continued his 
 watching. The baron rolled back his red sleeve to 
 gesture more eloquently: "Last night, after we 
 had hoisted the Black Petrel s chest out of the sunk 
 en and shell-filled cabin, I opened it in this lugger s 
 hold. The renegade blacks stood by they had sus 
 pected me always of some trick. I knew there was 
 no gold in the ship chest and that they had assist 
 ed me all the year in that expectation. So, I was 
 not unprepared for what happened. We opened it 
 but then I found that, even at the last, Armand 
 had played the fox the documents which he had 
 secreted in the ship s box when we still had hope of 
 escaping on her, were not there. Nothing not 
 a dollar, a franc, a sou either! But it was the 
 warrants from Charles the Third of Spain, issued 
 to Gaspard Bouligny de Drouillot, the adventurer 
 from Bordeaux, who aided the fourth Spanish gov 
 ernor of Louisiana Don Bernardo de Galvez in 
 the capture of Mobile in 1780, that I sought and 
 in vain. Yet I swear I saw Armand put the same
 
 302 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 grants which were for ten leagues of land on this 
 south coast into this chest. I made a hurried 
 search last night and then the black hounds were 
 on me. Allesjandro was in the swamp bringing 
 the last of the loot on board, so I fought the three 
 alone I had promised them gold alas! There 
 was none." 
 
 "And you knew all the time there was none ?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly. I played upon them their super 
 stitions, their terror of the Drouillot name, their 
 avarice their fear of the law. I had no trouble 
 with them at first, but of late well, it was all I 
 could do to keep my marquise from appealing to 
 the Yankees to control the blacks. And when they 
 thought you were returning with men who would 
 hunt them out of the swamp, they hurried the work 
 with the dynamite. Then the end came there 
 was no gold in Armand s cabin, and I knew it." 
 
 "Then they turned upon you!" 
 
 The old swordsman nodded ; his fat arm came up 
 triumphantly. "It could not have been better. There, 
 in the swamp, by the moonlight, with my lady look 
 ing on in terror yet admiringly. On the deck of 
 this boat, gentlemen. The instant the blacks knew 
 I had put it over them, they rushed me. I clipped 
 Crump across the face, drawing the blade so and
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 303 
 
 he went back in the deep black water. The other 
 fellow took my thrust through the neck, and with 
 a howl he followed. But the third as he went 
 down, pinned as neatly as ever I gave a man the 
 point, he fouled me over head with a leaded rope. 
 That was all. He fell across my sword, and broke 
 it to bits. After that we hurried out to open water, 
 Allesjandro with his pole and I at the wheel, quite 
 dizzy, but equal to it." 
 
 "You fought the three niggers you!" Virgil s 
 voice was gentle. 
 
 "Nothing, my friend. They had no chance I 
 had a bag of tricks with the sword, and they knew 
 it. It is the colored man s fatal weakness he 
 never can guess what the white man s last coup may 
 be." 
 
 "You you are some man!" Virgil s hand was 
 out to him, and the old adventurer took it. 
 
 "Well, I have played and lost. There is no more 
 now, my friends I have sucked the orange of life 
 quite dry. But ah, it was exquisite my old blood 
 has stirred this night !" 
 
 We followed him slowly out. Somehow the 
 Baron John had us stilled. For his lady s fortune, 
 in her defense, he had played his absurdity, but 
 unsullied. He had gone bragging through the world
 
 3 o 4 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 and played its game, buffeting its follies with follies, 
 and its crimes with crimes, but, perhaps, he had 
 kept that bright old blade clean at least for her. 
 
 In the hatchway I found I had taken his hand. 
 He looked down, queerly bright of eye from the 
 blinding sunshine. 
 
 "Eh, my good friend! I would like to sit again 
 with you in John-the-Fool and growl over our 
 coffee in the summer heat ; I would like to watch the 
 long shades fall from the deep swamp out across 
 the black clear water while you and I moiled over 
 the affairs of a world or two and thought nothing 
 of it ! You have been much to me but it is ended 
 now. The play is out, the pit is dug, the sword is 
 broken. Isle Bonne is yours and the game is lost." 
 
 Papa Prosper had ambled down the crazy plank 
 wharf, greeting Clell and Mary with unruffled cour 
 tesies. Then to us he came, and like two ghosts 
 out of the past he and the baron stiffly acknowledged 
 each other. 
 
 Papa brushed a mosquito from his ear with his 
 month-old newspaper. "Ah, messieurs, dat coffee I 
 mak. Yo will stop? Isle Bonne, she will enter 
 tain yo wan leetle time again. Dis leetle white 
 boat, in dis shade, she stay. Mademoiselle Laure,
 
 The thing seemed to fascinate him
 
 IN THE FACE OF FAILURE 305 
 
 mebbe fo breakfast she wake up. All night she 
 weep and wondeh ?" 
 
 The baron was waving the good Prosper on with 
 his chatter. 
 
 "Ah, may she sleep ! Two years now I have held 
 the vision to her I have made her eyes brighten 
 and her laughter come. Victory fortune defeat, 
 dismay to her enemies that was what I held forth 
 to her, and now even last night, when she knew 
 we had lost she loved me." 
 
 He waddled on after the others, in out of that 
 blinding sun of the mid-morning, for the Gulf 
 breeze had failed us now. We all were subdued 
 enough; I think it was that gentle-eyed Prosper in 
 his bare feet, waving us courteously to seats in his 
 grateful shade that made such a thing as belliger 
 ency toward the islanders impossible. And as for 
 me well, I could not help thinking of Baron John 
 Bernal de Vedrinnes, and his blade lying there all 
 broken, soiled by the dirty hold of Allesjandro s 
 lugger. 
 
 The old knight s roaring was done. He sat below 
 us all on the steps to Prosper s gallerie, his pink 
 medallion profile turned and a trifle bowed, yet 
 his eyes looking from under their shaggy red
 
 306 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 brows as if, out of the island s shadows, old fancies 
 might troop to hail him. So still it was that the 
 droning of the bees came from the swamp garden 
 back of the house, the patter of Prosper s feet 
 was distinct as he fetched his coffee and sugar ; and 
 afar over the wooded isle, we could hear the faint 
 whisper of the surf on the outer reefs. 
 
 Mary was deadly tired from the night s adventure 
 and the day s hurricane heat; Clell moodily sitting 
 below her; and the baron and I were busied with 
 our thoughts. 
 
 We were so when Virgil at last came out of the 
 lugger s cabin hold where I had left him gazing 
 quietly into that ship s chest with its foolish rub 
 bish. He looked up, and then quietly called to me. 
 
 "Just you, Doctor Dick," he said, and went below 
 again. 
 
 I went down the wharf and aboard the Good 
 Child to where the Texan sat once more on the 
 broken inner casing of Armand Drouillot s cabin 
 chest from the wrecked slave ship. The thing seem 
 ed to fascinate him.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 
 
 44" A 7"ELL?" I said after watching him study the 
 Y Y lead box. 
 
 "Well," he answered, "do you think we ought to 
 win?" 
 
 "Win?" I retorted. "We have won. Even this 
 ridiculous matter of the old ship and the digging, 
 and the interference with your work and scaring of 
 the negroes with the old pirate yarns so that they 
 desert you it s all done now. The baron admits 
 it the rummy old chap. He knows how to fight 
 as well as lose. I think Laure does too she ll not 
 have any great flare-up now though she may go 
 away with a breaking heart, when it comes to leav 
 ing Isle Bonne. She s game enough to lose right." 
 
 "That s just it. The greatest fighters are the 
 greatest losers that s me, Doctor Dick. And also 
 you. And the rest of us." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I answered sharply, for 
 the heat in there was stupefying. 
 
 307
 
 3 o8 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 For answer he reached in his khaki pocket and 
 took out a coarse bundle. There were papers with 
 a skin covering apparently, and tied with fine 
 leather thongs, and the whole thing had been rough 
 ly opened and then put together hastily as if in 
 a sort of panic on the part of the finder. 
 
 "Just this." He shook out the long rude mass 
 before me. I made nothing of it, except a faded 
 seal stamped on it twice. The writing was quite 
 unknown to me. 
 
 "I can read Spanish " Virgil went on evenly, 
 "learned it in Cannanea where I ran a mine fo seven 
 years fo a Mexican company. This is a whole lot 
 different but I know. Listen: the date of this is 
 1777 and the seal is of the fourth Spanish viceroy 
 of Louisiana. Look here : "Don Bernardo de Gal- 
 vez, Pensonado de los Realy distmguada orden de 
 Carlos III, Gobernador y Capltan General de las 
 Provincias de Luisiana y Florida Occidental " The 
 Texan broke off solemnly: "Doctor Dick, what s 
 the use ? It goes on to name the grant given to Gas- 
 pard Drouillot by grace of the king of Spain and 
 it is the land we re standin on !" 
 
 And after a moment he murmured : "That little 
 old king I neve had no manneh of use fo him 
 I told you long ago!"
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 309 
 
 It was enough. I stared at him but spoke quietly. 
 "How did you get it?" 
 
 "Kicked this pistol box to pieces. I just had a 
 curiosity. The old chap was too played out after 
 his fight last night to notice much, and this morn- 
 in he was too sorrowful. He just quit a minute 
 too soon, but I expaict his old eyes couldn t see what 
 I saw, anyway. All the time he talked I watched 
 that old shiny gun-box. I wouldn t give a cent for 
 a barrel of em as guns; but I noticed. There 
 were two compartments in that case one under this 
 velvet bottom. I saw it was so when I lifted the 
 guns. And it was locked, but soon as you and the 
 old boy went out, I broke it. There, rolled up, as 
 though they d been slapped in there in a mighty 
 hurry were these papers Laure s grants right 
 from the king o Spain. I sure read enough fo 
 that! Why the looks of it s enough to scare me!" 
 
 "Yes ?" I queried, for I had not thought as fast 
 as he. 
 
 "I waited till you all got out," he continued. 
 
 "Yes," I repeated, "not a soul of them knows 
 not a soul in all the world, except you and me, Vir- 
 
 gil." 
 
 His troubled smile was on me. "I could burn 
 em here on the cabin flo . I could tear em across 
 and drop em ove and in an hour they d look like
 
 3io JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 a drowned water-lily. Sho ! And if she has em 
 there s no two guesses at it. The Prairie Meadows 
 Company and you and me, and every one in it 
 is busted. There s be no fight in it we couldn t 
 go back on these grants you see I know. The 
 cou t d reverse the case in fo ty minutes when 
 they saw these first records." 
 
 "I see." The slow and growing brightness of his 
 eye did not deceive me. And I \vent on evenly in 
 what must have been a taunt to him, there with his 
 wreck fortune, his pledged word, his reputation 
 among men, the fruit of his eight years fight for 
 himself and all the others : "The biggest fighters are 
 the biggest losers you have it right, Virgil." 
 
 "What would you do, Doctor Dick?" 
 
 Tm not saying. I won t be wholly ruined if the 
 land company blew up to-morrow. Not altogether. 
 But there are at least twenty widows and poor folks 
 who, one way and another, have been led to invest 
 in the Isle Bonne lands through me. Old friends 
 and neighbors, that I got in somehow, because you 
 said" 
 
 "Don t " he said. "I got as many mo ! I 
 ain t worryin about those New York fel-los. The 
 speculators and financiers ; it s the little ones who 
 who well, they been pretty patient with me let
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 311 
 
 me vote their stock so s I could fight the big fel- 
 los who wanted to pull out all the time. Yes, seh 
 they stood by me trustin and now " 
 
 He looked out at the blue quiver of heat against 
 the cypress isle the timber alone of it would fight 
 off disaster if all else quit him. 
 
 "Well," he muttered briefly. "I wondeh why God 
 made me find it ? It wouldn t have been so hard on 
 you Doctor Dick or Clell or anybody. But me 
 " he looked out and up the dazzling wharf to the 
 high silent house: "And she she s asleep in the 
 and knows she s lost yes, seh and me I m 
 walkin around with this stuff in my pockets. Yes, 
 seh and she won t compromise she ll go away a 
 beggar with that old fool. Yes seh! I deviled 
 him fo fou years but now he s a betteh man than 
 I am ! It s how a man loses that counts ! Anybody 
 can be a man and win!" 
 
 Then he stood up and put the papers in his pocket. 
 I followed him out and under the awnings of his 
 own boat the gay little white cruiser with her 
 brasses and mahogany cabin that he had bought in 
 his first exultance of victory to have for journeys 
 "out front" to the city in the busy years of the ex 
 ploitation and selling of his lands. I think, when 
 we had gone down in that cozy cabin, and the first
 
 3 i2 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 stir of the afternoon breeze which foretells the Au 
 gust squalls had touched the silken curtains, that it 
 was the ironic luxuriousness of the Seabird after the 
 dirt and grime of his work boats all these years, 
 which first drove the steel of failure to his soul. 
 
 He laughed mirthlessly as we sat across the table 
 and touched the ice-water to our lips. The yellow 
 boy was under the fore-awnings rubbing lazily at 
 the brass-work. And the gaunt Texan looked out 
 to the others on the shade of the gallerie. 
 
 "The big losers, Doctor Dick! Shucks, the old 
 boy is right ! To-morrow, I ll stand on my feet, on 
 the corneh of Canal and Royal Streets and I ll owe 
 the Prairie Meadows Land Company two hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand dollehs and I won t have 
 the price of a shave, when I pay the boy here." 
 
 I had to watch him now and I had kept my face 
 averted. He was laughing again strangely, like a 
 man the heat had touched. Then he got up and 
 struck the table. 
 
 "Doctor Dick, will you go send her down here ? I 
 cain t go face em all. I wouldn t know how to talk. 
 And the baron the old boy I cain t face him, 
 somehow. But Laure the grants are hers I ex- 
 paict I must pay em right into her hands. And 
 tell her we quit to-morry I ll jerk the dredges out
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 313 
 
 of the ditch, wire the New York fel-los to get a 
 new manager to pull what he can out of the wreck 
 and then I ll find a steameh fo British Honduras. 
 I know a fel-lo minin down the . You just watch 
 me some-a-time !" Then the patient smile lit his 
 worn eyes : "I can fight but I know when to be 
 licked. The baron I expaict he s been just livin 
 on fo ty years after his proper time to tell me that. 
 And a dog-gone proper knight he is !" 
 
 "Tut you!" I stuttered at him, for the tears 
 kept to my eyes. "I m telling you the same you 
 beggar! It s her island how the mischief could 
 we keep it?" 
 
 "Easy. Just a match to these documents." And 
 again his sad humor lit him. "Easy and that s 
 what makes it so plumb hard!" 
 
 And when I went out and up the hot wharf to 
 Papa Prosper s house, I could still hear him mut 
 tering in his little white cabin: 
 
 "Easy and that s what makes it hard!" 
 
 I found them all idling about in Prosper s chairs 
 and hammocks. It was mid-noon now, August in 
 Louisiana, without the Gulf breeze; and that is 
 something bad when the sea breeze fails. 
 
 The tidal lakes northward were blue burnished 
 copper again, with a little patch of feathery bloom
 
 314 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 miles away where our incipient wind had wandered. 
 And out of Isle Bonne s jungle, the stinging sun 
 found way. 
 
 Mary hardly stirred her weary head from the 
 hammock. "I wonder what is next ?" she murmur 
 ed: "Clell, won t you fan me again please?" 
 
 He had been, it seemed, even after Laure had 
 come out of her darkened chamber. She had re 
 fused a chair, and now sat in a small crumpled heap 
 just in the shade of the door. All eyes, she was, 
 and high cheek-bones, with a feverish color ; and one 
 hand was reached down to the baron s shoulder, 
 and the old man was patting that and talking to her 
 in the Creole patois of the south coast. She was 
 listening stonily as if, in him, too, her faith was 
 breaking. As if indeed, he was no more the roaring 
 knight-errant whose words could people a world of 
 fancy, but a crushed old man, tired and depending 
 on her for solace. 
 
 When I spoke quietly to her she looked up but 
 without interest. The baron, on the step below, 
 moved a bit as if to acknowledge my presence. Clell 
 and Mary regarded me with the tired repose of the 
 hot noon; it had been a bad night for us all, and 
 now, besides that, there seemed a great sorrow 
 brooding over all this brightness and this shade
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 315 
 
 the glitter of lake and sky, the depth and mys 
 tery of the flooded forest curving about Isle Bonne s 
 cove. Silence, and every one too weary and haunted 
 by an unspoken regret, to break it. 
 
 "When is he going?" Clell muttered to me. 
 
 "I don t know. I don t know anything. Let 
 him be he s got enough just now." 
 
 And though they knew nothing of his struggle 
 at the last, Clell and Mary nodded; it was the 
 boss again who would have to determine the way; 
 shoulder the load over the peak of the hill for us all. 
 I turned again to the mistress of the lost isle. 
 
 "Laure, will you come down to the little white 
 boat?" 
 
 She shrugged indifferently: "I have seen it, 
 m sieu the treasure. Ah, that was a bitter joke 
 my old kind friend is heart-broken with it all, and 
 I can not find a word to comfort him." 
 
 Her ragged old knight was patting the slim hand 
 he held: 
 
 "There there my dear ! I have taken too many 
 hard knocks of fortune to mind this. It was you, 
 little Marquise of you always I have thought. Out 
 in the great world with a fortune how this would 
 have pleased you, or that; the Rue de la Paix, or 
 the boulevards on a day of autumn all color and
 
 316 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 brightness and motion; or perhaps some little hat 
 out of a shop of wonders that would have made 
 your eyes laugh or in Italy, where the blue sea 
 is and the high peaks rise, you who have never 
 seen a hill would have felt your soul dumb before 
 them! Eh little Marquise! The glory of the 
 world that is what I would have spread like a 
 silken gown before you, just to have heard your 
 little cries of wonder." 
 
 She bent to kiss his old cheek gravely : "No man 
 can speak like you, dear Baron only poets ! Never 
 mind there may be wonders still." 
 
 So she came down the creaky old steps and off on 
 the wharf in a small defiant gaiety; but I, by her 
 side, saw she would not look back for her tears. 
 
 "Yes yes" she whispered to me "you know, 
 but my baron he must not know ! He must think 
 I am happy and do not care !" 
 
 So, without answer, I brought her into the cabin 
 where Virgil sat by the mahogany table. The 
 sun fell through and upon some silver things there, 
 and the purple hyacinth spikes which Mary had idly 
 picked up as they trailed along our course through 
 the lake. 
 
 She looked at Virgil silently, and then sat across 
 from him with an air of indifferent expectancy. She
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 317 
 
 had lost to her enemy, and there was probably some 
 form or rote of the law to comply with, so that Isle 
 Bonne was his forever. And she would sign or give, 
 or whatever it was she had got through fight 
 ing now, when Monsieur le Baron with his sore 
 heart, said it was useless. 
 
 I stood in the doorway to the engine-room irre 
 solutely. Virgil wanted me, I knew, but I did not 
 care to watch it all. But he did not give me a 
 chance to excuse myself and get away gracefully. 
 It was with his usual blunt sureness that he spoke, 
 waving his hand briefly to the ancient documents 
 upon the table. 
 
 "Laure, there they are I give em back to you." 
 
 Without understanding, she reached to the papers 
 and drew them toward her, about to read. Then, 
 with her elbows on the table, her hands to her cheeks, 
 her dark hair tumbling about her brow, her long 
 lashed eyes lowered, she was intent on the opening 
 paragraphs of that sonorous and high-sounding pro- 
 nunciamento of the king of Spain. 
 
 After a moment she looked up gravely; her bright 
 eyes on the Texan s calm face. 
 
 "What is this all, m sieu? The French on the 
 margin, I know well enough, though it is queer. 
 But the Spanish I do not know much of that.
 
 3 i8 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 Only here is my name" and she lifted the papers 
 from their leather backing and shook them decisive 
 ly: "Bouligny de Drouillot he was the first of 
 us." 
 
 Virgil reached a finger to touch the paper at the 
 bottom. "That is his signature his bond to per 
 form certain things and in return they gave him 
 this !" His arm went in a sweep out to the forest 
 isle. "From the riveh to the sea and four hundred 
 arpents wide that s what it was to begin with, 
 Laure the land you had !" 
 
 She watched him silently. Her fingers relaxed 
 from the paper. 
 
 "The king o Spain didn t do things in a small 
 way, Laure. And I / cain t either, some-a-way ! 
 That little old king been dead a hundred and fifty 
 years sho I wish he could know how I gambled 
 against him and lost!" 
 
 "M sieu " Her breath was rising quicker. "You 
 mean this " 
 
 He watched her slim fingers clutch the paper 
 nervously. "Yes just that. The grants that the 
 king o Spain gave to yo people, Laure. The 
 papehs that the Supreme Cou t gave you three years 
 to find and you couldn t and so you lost!" 
 
 "What are you doing with them here ?"
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 319 
 
 "I found them here this mawnin . That old 
 gun-case. The baron was too dazed afteh his fight 
 to find anythin . I found them." 
 
 "And you give them back to me?" 
 
 He was silent, his lean brown face impassive in 
 the flicker of sun through the screened windows. 
 
 "Why do you give them back to me?" 
 
 He could not answer that either to her growing 
 persistence. She laid the ancient grants of her 
 marauding fathers down and looked at him. "I 
 don t believe I would if I had been you," she mur 
 mured: "I know it means you are just smashed 
 forever and I don t believe I could have done it, if 
 I had been you." 
 
 "Yes, you could. The baron would dog-gone 
 him!" 
 
 "Yes, but they call him : John-the-Fool !" 
 
 "Sho l And he taught me in the end, I reckon. 
 He cain t be any bigger one than me when it 
 comes to playin the game square. Why, the old boy 
 I neve knew him befo !" Virgil laughed brief 
 ly: "Why, yesterday I wouldn t a give fou bits 
 fo all the old knights in history no manneh of 
 use fo em! Then along comes this old boy, and I 
 find he s played straight fo you all the time. Fo 
 you and he cain t get ahead of me at tjiat!"
 
 320 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 She was silent again, looking at him now and 
 then, with odd and puzzled brightness, as if unable 
 to follow all he meant. Then she reached her 
 hand to the yellow grants. 
 
 "So they re mine. Isle Bonne and all the prairie. 
 Just like they were, always." 
 
 "Yes." He was pushing back from the table, and 
 now looked at me with his shyly serene smile. 
 "And I reckon I feel betteh now. Cleaned out, 
 but I feel betteh. I ll be on my feet and fightin in 
 a month, Doctor Dick !" 
 
 "Yes, but " she had taken a step between him 
 and me, still holding the documents. "All you ve 
 done the canals, and the pumping station every 
 thing?" 
 
 "I m sorry," he muttered. "I cain t put yo woods 
 and prairie back like it was. But in a year two 
 years the Isle Bonne jungles will grow ove the 
 plant, and the lilies you won t find a ditch fo 
 yo lilies, Laure." 
 
 "It wasn t always so," Laure answered slowly. 
 "Do you know that once they kept the sea out, and 
 it was all sugar cane and rice from the woods to 
 Bayou L Ourse? And groves and orange trees 
 Papa Prosper can almost remember there were 
 little children playing there !"
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 321 
 
 He was looking out to her blue-green woods, and 
 the old somber sense of failure came on him: "I 
 know. That s what I used to think I d fight the 
 sea back, too. You swamp land such black rich 
 land I was goin to beat you and then sometime 
 show you what I dreamed of in the beginnin 
 the little farms and orange rows and homes they d 
 be yes, seh! And children, too I could a made 
 that fo em hundreds of em thousands of em 
 long afteh I d been dead. That was what I 
 dreamed of it wasn t the money any fool can 
 make money. But the game that was it. To 
 make the earth richer, and some homes happier 
 afteh you d gone and you game with you that s 
 the man s size job I dreamed of !" 
 
 She had listened to his exaltation curiously. "Was 
 that it, m sieu? It is beautiful. Messieur le Baron 
 why even my old knight, he could not talk like 
 that!" 
 
 "It wasn t his game it was my kind of game." 
 He looked down at her patiently: "And you little 
 thing I used to pity you you wouldn t listen to 
 reason or compromise you d neve listen to me at 
 all. Sho it made me laugh it hurt me so!" 
 
 He was laughing strangely as he came aft to the 
 engine-room. I went ahead to make way for him
 
 322 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 and was out on the stern deck under the awnings 
 when I heard her cry to him. 
 
 "Wait! You mustn t if it hurts you so!" 
 
 He had turned in the passageway, his brown 
 crushed hat shading his face from me. "I cain t 
 talk to you, now afteh you beat me." 
 
 "Why don t you say you want me to help you?" 
 
 "All the time, I reckoned I d tell you mo when 
 I d won. Now, you d think because I was beat 
 I come to you and beg fo compromise to fix it 
 up, someway. Well, I cain t from you." 
 
 He was turning from her, his voice at the nearest 
 break I had ever known in the man, when she 
 came and was at his side. 
 
 "Here here " I heard her whisper : "I d rather 
 you would burn them than to hurt you so! To 
 have you feel that way to beg of me of me 
 when all the time all the time, I waited won 
 dered" 
 
 I could not understand her clear voice further for 
 its blurring curiously. "To beg of me " she went 
 on. "Mel When all the time I wasn t trying to 
 hate you." Then her voice was lost altogether, and 
 I thought it was muffled against his gray shirt; for 
 after a moment, I heard him whisper: "You mean
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 323 
 
 that you little ? Why, all the time you was try in 
 not to love me and couldn t make it go?" 
 
 I heard the ancient grants from the king of Spain 
 fall to the cabin floor from about the height of 
 the Texan s shoulder. Then, as I reached the planks 
 of Papa Prosper s wharf, purposely making a noise 
 so that they would know I was hastening away, I 
 heard Laure speaking so softly that I did not know 
 whether it was a whisper, laughter or a sob. 
 
 "Messieur le Baron! We will have to go tell 
 him that Isle Bonne has found another knight be 
 sides John-the-Fool ! A real knight for the little 
 homes and gardens and all the children playing!" 
 
 "A fool fo luck," he murmured "that s me, 
 little Marquise!" 
 
 I went on up the gallerie stairs and heard Papa 
 Prosper within puttering about his charcoal pot. 
 Then a siren whistle afar on the lakes, Virgil s 
 second supply steamer coming to the main canal. 
 Then steps behind me; and I discovered that the 
 two from the white boat were following. 
 
 "Well," I said: "since you are here, you may 
 as well tell them." 
 
 Laure looked at her fat knight who was sound 
 asleep in the shadow, his green cap with the rooster
 
 3 2 4 JOHN THE FOOL 
 
 feather fallen quite off his pink-gray head. She was 
 going to him when she found Mary in the hammock 
 and Clell on a low seat by her, holding her hand 
 in much the fashion they did before me in the old 
 days. 
 
 "Ah, I always thought, rri sieu, that somewhere 
 nawth there was a lady !" 
 
 "And she had to come down to your wilderness, 
 my dear," Mary murmured, "just to escape from 
 her own that she made for herself! She knows 
 now? 
 
 Laure had reached the baron. She softly drop 
 ped the grants from the king of Spain down upon 
 his hairy bosom, and even in his sleep the knight s 
 fat old hand closed upon them. Clell had arisen 
 to stare at them and at her and then at Virgil. 
 There was no mistaking anything, even without 
 the Texan s words and the joy in his eyes. 
 
 "You win Virgil?" Clell muttered: "Well, 
 here, old chap! I made good, didn t I? And the 
 big thing is that Mary knows!" 
 
 I turned from the boss and his lieutenant grip 
 ping each other s hard brown hands. Laure was 
 laughing with her fingers upon the sleeves of both. 
 
 "Messieurs! When Messieur le Baron awaken,
 
 THE KING O SPAIN SURRENDERS 325 
 
 I shall tell him I have got the last one they have 
 all come to our side! to assist John-the-Fool !" 
 
 The fat knight, catching a phrase, murmured in 
 his sleep again. I listened : 
 
 "Ah, Marquise you should have seen the one I 
 was when I was twenty!" 
 
 THE END
 
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