‘Well, who wants to go there?’ demanded Pud. ‘Gee, Swamp Hole’s twenty miles or more up the river! Besides, I’ve heard that you can’t get to it, anyway, unless you know just how. That’s what makes it like it is; filled with murderers and such-like folks, I mean. They just know the officers can’t find them.’ ‘Well, I don’t suppose,’ answered Tim charitably, ‘that they’re all murderers up there. I guess there are some decent people, Pud.’ But Pud didn’t hold with that notion. He shook his head and frowned darkly. ‘I guess decent folks wouldn’t be likely to live in with all those cut-throats and――and desperadoes, Tim. No, sir, I guess they’re all pretty much alike in Swamp Hole, and I wouldn’t go in there for any amount of money. Well, maybe I would for a couple of hundred dollars, but not any less than that.’ ‘A couple of hundred!’ exclaimed Tim. ‘Gosh, I wouldn’t do it for――for a couple of million!’ ‘Well,’ hedged Pud, ‘of course I didn’t mean I’d go alone. I wouldn’t mind going with Mr. Garvey, the marshal, and, maybe, Sumner Jones and――and Mr. Thrasher.’ ‘Maybe, if they were all armed,’ granted Tim doubtfully. ‘The’s worser things than murderers in that ol’ Swamp Hole,’ observed Harmon gravely. ‘The’s ghos’es an’ hants, Mister Pud.’ ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ replied Pud severely. ‘How-come?’ ‘Because there isn’t!’ ‘Mister Pud, did you-all ever see a ghos’?’ ‘No, I didn’t, and there’s no use in your asking me “How do I know then!” Because that’s no argument at all! Nobody believes in ghosts any more, Harmon; nobody but just darkies!’ ‘How-come Mister Tim say they was hants in that there house what you’ Aun’ live in, then? He ain’ no darky!’ ‘I suppose he was just fooling,’ answered Pud, looking to Tim for agreement. Tim nodded, but Harmon insisted with conviction: ‘He don’ ac’ like he’s foolin’ when he say it!’ Further discussion was prevented by their arrival at the mouth of the Fox River, and Pud swung the bow of the launch to starboard and entered new water. The Fox proved a sluggish stream, but even so the launch showed speedily that moving against a current was quite different from moving with it, and although Tim, at Pud’s command, advanced the throttle to the limit, the boat seemed contented to chug along at a four-mile gait. Perhaps it may have had a premonition of what awaited beyond and was loath to meet it! For a while the stream, nowhere much more than a hundred yards wide, curved slowly between low banks edged with rushes from which wide fields, mostly tilled, ascended gently to distant farmhouses and barns. It was perhaps an hour before the forest closed in upon them and they found themselves moving slowly through silent reaches where the shadows lay broadly on the scarcely moving water. It was very warm in there, for the trees cut them off from the breeze that was swaying the topmost branches, high above.