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The Texas man began driving desperately on the oars. He heard the heavy rush of the skipper's feet in the deepening water. Tedge's voice became a bull-like roar as the depth began to check him. To his waist, and the slow skiff was but ten yards away; to his great shoulders, and the clumsy oarsman was but five. And with a yell of triumph Tedge lunged out swimming.
Whoever the fugitive, he was hopeless with the oars. The skiff swung this way and that, and a strong man at its stern could hurl it and its occupant bottom-side up in Au Fer Pass. Tedge, swimming in Au Fer Pass, his fingers to the throat of this unknown marauder! There'd be another one go and nothing but his hands Bill Tedge's hands that the shrimp camps feared. Just hold him under that was all.
The smell of burning wood and grease was thickening; and suddenly now, through it, he saw the quiet, questioning face of the stranger. He had forgotten him completely. Tedge's small brain had room but for one idea at a time: first his rage at the lilies, and then the wrecking of the Marie. And this man knew. He had been staring down the after-companionway. He had seen and heard.
But all along the white surf line he could see the green-and-purple plumes of the hyacinth warriors tossing in the breeze legion upon legion, coming to die gloriously on Au Fer's sands. But first they sent a herald; for in Tedge's hand, as he lay in the pool, one waxen-leafed banner with a purple spear-point glittered in the sun. By MARYLAND ALLEN From Everybody's
"Sun and sea to-morry they'll be back on Au Fer like dried bones o' dead men in the sand! Bear east'ard off of 'em!" The oarsman struggled in the deeper pass water. The skiff bow suddenly plunged into a wall of green-and-purple bloom. The points brushed Tedge's cheek. He cursed and smote them, tore them from the low bow and flung them. But the engineman stood up and peered into the starlight.
Tedge was a master-hand among the reefs and shoals, even if the flappaddle Marie had no business outside. But the sea was nothing but a star-set velvet ribbon on which she crawled like a dirty insect. And no man questioned Tedge's will. Only, an hour later, the engineman came up and forward to stare into the faster-flowing water. Even now he pointed to a hyacinth clump. "Yeh!" the master growled.
Rogers tried to turn to the oar athwart, and awkwardly he stumbled. The oar seemed like a roll of thunder when it struck the gunwale. And instantly a hoarse shout arose behind him. Tedge's voice Tedge had not slept well. The gaunt cattle burning or choking in the salt tide, or perhaps the lilies of Bayou Boeuf anyhow, he was up with a cry and dashing for the skiff. In a moment Rogers saw him.
He knew his crew was grinning evilly, for they remembered Bill Tedge's year-long feud with the lilies. Crump had bluntly told the skipper he was a fool for trying to push up this little-frequented bayou from Cote Blanche Bay to the higher land of the west Louisiana coast, where he had planned to unload his cattle.
When the skiff had drawn about the sand spit, the reflecting waters around the Marie had vanished, and the fire appeared as a fallen meteor burning on the flat, black belt of encircling reef. Tedge's murderous little eyes watched easterly.
Tedge had been setting himself for what he knew he should do. The smaller man had his jaw turned as he stared at the suffering brutes. And Tedge's mighty fist struck him full on the temple. The master leaned over the low rail to watch quietly. The man who wished to save the cattle was there among them.
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