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Updated: May 14, 2025
Sam had started for the house, carrying Jeems as if the long-legged swamper was the same age and size as his own small son. Ricky dashed on ahead to warn Lucy. Rupert had Sam Two by the collar and was giving him instructions for catching Dr. LeFrode, who was probably making his morning rounds and might be found at the sugar-mill where one of the feeders had injured his hand.
Val opened the door of the bedroom. The sunlight was fading fast and already the corners of the large room were filled with the gray of dusk. But light from the windows swept full across the bed and its occupant. Val hobbled stiffly toward it. "Hello." The brown face on the pillow did not change expression as Val greeted the swamper. "How do you feel now?" "Bettah," Jeems answered shortly.
It was hard now to think back to Nahuatl as if the Vye Lansor who had been swamper in that den of the port town was a different person altogether. In that patch of memories into which Rynch Brodie still intruded he hunted for the proper answer. "I couldn't hold the state jobs. And once you get the habit of eating, you don't starve willingly." "Why not the state jobs?"
"Bettah tell us the story," suggested the swamper quietly. "Yo' ain't foolin', are yo', Mistuh Creighton?" The New Yorker shook his head. "No, I'm not fooling. But you are not the first one to question my story." He smiled reminiscently. "Judge Henry Lane had to see every line of written proof this morning before he would admit that the tale might be true."
Neither Bill nor the big swamper had ever alluded to that affair in the bunk-house upon the night of their first meeting, and it was with a feeling of surprise that the foreman looked up one evening as he sat alone in the little office to see Stromberg enter and cross to his side. The man lost no time in coming to the point.
Then it was that Moncrossen knew that something must be done and that something quickly. He shifted Stromberg and Fallon to the sawing crew, made a skidder out of a swamper, and filled his place with a grub-shack flunky. Then one afternoon he dropped in upon Bill in the bunk-house, where that young man sat fuming at his inaction with his foot propped up on the edge of a bunk.
"What does he think?" There was urgency in that question. "Who's he?" "Yo' brothah." "Rupert? Why, he's glad to have you here," Val answered. "Does he know 'bout " Val shook his head. "Tell him!" ordered the swamper. "Ah ain't a-goin' to stay undah his ruff lessen he knows. 'Tain't fitten." At this clean-cut statement of the laws of hospitality, Val nodded. "All right. I'll tell him.
What profit would I find in a cabin like this? I want what he knows, not what he has." Having thus reduced his henchman to silence, the speaker went on smoothly, as if he were thinking aloud. "With Simpson doing so well in town, we're close to the finish. This swamper must tell us " His voice trailed away.
At that, Jeems made a violent effort to sit up. "Non!" his English deserted him and he broke into impassioned French. "Yes," Val replied firmly as Ricky pushed the swamper down. "Of course you're coming with us. You've had a nasty knock on the head that needs attention." "Ah'm not a-goin' to no hospital!" His eyes burned into Val's. "Certainly not!" cried Ricky. "You're bound for our guest-room.
The postmaster and station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn. The first news came down two week later by Miles McCormick, a swamper on Ward's Number 8 operation. The man had a gash on his cheek and a big purple swelling under one eye.
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