Pud blinked. What he saw now was no more like what he had seen last night than――well, than daylight is like dark! Now the warm sunlight bathed the scene; the tranquil stream reflected the clear blue sky, the green banks, the little cabins and shanty-boats, the clearings about them, the garden-patches and tobacco-fields beyond. Tall, straight pines and spreading oaks threw patches of shadow over which the morning dew still lay like a silver mist. The cabins, roughly made though they were, looked neat and homelike, and from most of them the gray-blue smoke of morning fires still arose to hover over the little village with a pleasantly pungent odor. Nearly every habitation had its small truck-patch behind. In some cases the patches were of good size, and several held strawberry beds in blossom and fruit. Tobacco, already a foot high, stretched back over land reclaimed from the swamp, its broad green leaves bright in the sun. Among the plants the growers were at work, men, women, and children. In front of a cabin two women were fashioning baskets of willow withes. Before another an elderly, white-bearded man was making a hickory chair. In front of the small store, in the morning sunshine, a handful of Swampers, sighting the approach of the strange launch, ceased their gossip and lounged unhurriedly down the path. Somehow, Pud felt a dim sense of disappointment. This was not the Swamp Hole of his imaginings. This was merely a pleasant, peaceful, and peaceable little village which no more suggested dark deeds and villainy than Millville itself! Harmon, who, in spite of a brave front, had been secretly alarmed at the prospect of bearding the desperadoes of Swamp Hole, regained his poise and put his head a little higher over the edge of the boat. Protected by the presence of a policeman in uniform, a sheriff, and a detective, he could, he believed, show himself with impunity. Tim was at once relieved and, like Pud, disappointed. He guessed Pud hadn’t done anything so startlingly daring after all! The police boat eased to the few posts and old planks that served as a pier, and the sheriff hailed one of the loungers cheerily. ‘Howdy, Jeff! How you-all?’ ‘Fair to middlin’, Sheriff.’ The man addressed was tall, lanky, very blue of eye, and with tow-colored hair. He wore cotton trousers and the remains of a blue calico shirt. Head and feet were bare. He smoked a pipe as he ambled nearer, followed by his companions, and slowly let his gaze travel from one end of the launch to the other. ‘Say, Jeff,’ went on the sheriff, ‘we picked up this skiff down yonder on the Run. Least, these boys did. Thought it might belong to some o’ you folks in here. Happen to know it?’