It was Bobbie who saw the snake and Johnnie's crutch that killed it. It was Willie who, with a branch broken from a tree, brushed the horrid spider from Leon's shoulder without the younger boy's knowledge. It was Leon, himself, who cried out a warning to Jimmie and the girls to dodge some flying creature. They were on guard, each one, like a little band of soldiers. They were fighting a battle with death. Every one of those tired, half-starved little ones, climbing with the ease of monkeys along those low-hanging branches knew with an awful certainty that they were fleeing for their lives. Any one of them would instantly have dropped into the engulfing mud rather than fall again into the clutches of the ogre they had left behind. But their passage was as if the sparrows that flew ahead had, with their wings, swept the way clear before them. The snakes crawled away, or were sleeping, having gorged themselves during the night. The bugs and spiders seemed incurious regarding the strange procession, and the sun shone down between the trees with such unusual brightness that the insects sought deeper shade. "Everything a-goin' fine," called Mollie from her place up ahead. "Yo'-all don't need ter be a-feared ter laugh, now. Ther hain't ary one ter whup yo'-all. Jimmie, yo' kin sing ef yo' feel fer hit. Thar hain't nawthin' a-goin' ter tech us an' time we gits ter thet thar nex' tree we'll set a spell on thet low limb an' each on us eat a potato." For Mollie had left nothing forgotten. She had included in her provisions for the journey, milk for the baby, water for the children and raw potatoes for them all. She did not know that greater struggles lay ahead; that they had accomplished but a small part of their tortuous journey. CHAPTER XXII RANSOM MONEY "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."--Matt. xxiii, 38 All through the night just passed a haggard man paced the floor of an empty nursery in his lonely home, awaiting for a message that did not come. Whether or not he would have been cheered by the knowledge that his baby daughter was being prepared to start at daybreak on the back of a young girl, little more than a child herself, through the swamps and quagmires that lay between the Grimes farm and the river road, it is difficult to say. It might, at least, have reassured him regarding her welfare for the moment and dispelled the haunting fear that the little one was in the hands of a fiend. But Harris Wayne did not know. And uncertainty as to the safety and whereabouts of a loved one is always torture. He was not rendered more tranquil by what had been learned at the hotel. The man, Grimes, had actually been seen leaving the Mansion House several days prior to the kidnapping. It was not known with whom he had visited there. Yet the script of the letter demanding ransom corresponded in part with the handwriting of the man who had registered at the hotel as Bailey.