Payne made no reply but led the way to the dugout and headed across the water for the bunch of pines marking his northwestern corner. "There isn't as much water on it as I thought," he said as the canoe stuck again as they approached the pines. "No; it's only the middle that's really drowned. Wonder what the bottom's like." Higgins thrust his paddle tentatively into the bottom. "Well, I'll be damned!" The blade of the paddle had slipped easily into the ground. Higgins pushed on the handle, pushed the paddle three feet into soil, withdrew it and held it up for inspection. "Muck! Three foot of black muck, and I wasn't near touching bottom!" Together they began to probe, and everywhere with the same result. The muck underneath the water ran from three to five feet in depth, and was as black as peat. The water grew shallower as they went westward and presently gave way to dry land covered with a growth of saw grass through which they literally had to push their way. The saw grass ended abruptly, and the last hundred yards to the pines they walked on high and dry land. The pines were on the eastern edge of the great prairie which they had glimpsed on their walk up the river. As they paddled back to the hammock for the breakfast which they had left the Seminole to prepare Payne studied the land to the northward with keen interest. A heavier growth than saw grass covered this land. On closer inspection it proved to be a jungle of elderberry, the growth so dense that a man could barely squeeze through. The land here was higher and dry, and black muck of the same depth as on the drowned land to the south. Payne paddled back to Deer Hammock in silence. Just as they were about to land he drove his paddle into the bottom with a gesture of finality. "Well, Higgins?" "Yes, sir! That high ground to the north is a watershed and it all drains off onto your land. That's what drowns it." "Right. And I drain into that river." "Yep. You can drain your piece all right. But it'll cost like sin; and that high elderberry ground up there will always be shedding water onto it." "So all I need is to get hold of that piece up there." "Hah! So that's what you were thinking about? Who owns it?" "Not this crooked Prairie Company. It's owned by the Southern Cypress Company. They own so much land they probably don't know what they've got over here. We'll get breakfast and hustle back to a wire some place. I'll think it over. I may buy that piece. Then we'll have something to do business with." "Well, you'd better hurry or your breakfast will be gone," spoke a voice from the hammock. "Willy Tiger had it all ready when we arrived." Payne stepped from the canoe and strode toward the two men who were seated at the camp fire. One of them rose and he recognized the dark face of Ramos. Then he saw Willy Tiger's crumpled body lying like a sack of grain across one of the sleeping benches.