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At the same time, the hull lifted, and, aided by wind, sea and current, it set still further on the reef, thumping in a way to break strong iron bolts, like so many sticks of sealing-wax, and cracking the solid live-oak of the floor-timbers as if they were made of willow. The captain stood aghast!
Yet not quite; for there is visible yonder, beneath the outer tip of a live-oak which we have found to stretch and droop twenty-four paces from the seven-foot trunk, a little fleet of canoes. They belong to the professional fisherman whose too tarry nets are quite an encumbrance for some yards of the sandy beach, and whose well may be noticed about a rifle-shot out from the shore.
Much of its course is through swamps, though in some places the pine barrens and live-oak hummocks approach its banks. It contains immense quantities of fish, pike, bass, and perch. In the first hummock which we reached the colonel shot a buck, and I got two young turkeys from a flock.
On our arrival we found four Mexican women, seven children, one man, three dogs, four goats, and several roosters, gathered round the form of little Panchot stretched beneath the live-oak. A fire smouldered a little way off, and a cradle hung from the branch of the fatherly tree. Little Panchot had a nasty cut about an inch long through his cheek.
He had found the gate open when he came, and the Dyer cow had passed him, meandering peacefully up the trail. The crescent moon had waxed and waned since the night when it lighted the engineer's musings through the wind-parted live-oak boughs, and another slender bow gleamed in the pale, tinted haze of twilight.
Before night you'll be swinging underneath the big live-oak on the plaza. That's a prophecy for you to swallow, you four-flushing bully." It went home like an arrow. The furtive eyes of the killer slid sideways to question this public which had scattered so promptly to save itself. Would the mob turn on him later and destroy him? Young Beaudry's voice flowed on.
He was delighted to observe how few of the guests slaked their thirst with water, and he quoted the famous quatrain: "Let princes revel at the pump; Let peers with ponds make free; But whisky, beer, or even wine, Is good enough for me." After the rodeo, the Professor lighted a large cigar and composed himself under a live-oak.
Under the shade of an immense live-oak just west of the barn, the big waiter at the Miners' Home was running an opposition saloon to the one inside, with a plank on two kegs for a bar. The center of the barn was already filled with dark-skinned Señoritas and tall, gawky miners dancing to the music of a squeaky violin.
The kill was made late in the day, in a bend of the river, about fifteen miles above the Vaux ranch, forming a jungle of several thousand acres. In this thickety covert the fugitive made his final stand, taking refuge in an immense old live-oak, the mossy festoons of which partially screened him from view.
Webber, from her chair under the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper-back volume for company. "It balances perfeckly, Marthy," answered Sam, with a suspicious pleasantness in his tone.
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