"Do you want to turn back, Hig?" asked Payne suddenly. "You're going to try to get through?" "Yes." "Then I'm with you to the finish; and that's settled." Payne pointed out over the mud which lay between them and their destination. "That's the way we're going. First of all we'll see if the thing can be waded." He stepped carefully off into the oozy slime and allowed himself to sink. He sank to his shoulders without finding any bottom. "Nothing doing there," he said when Higgins had pulled him back to safety. "Come on." He led the way up the bank to where the high land gave way to the treacherous mud. Higgins essayed attempts in various directions, but each time found the mud of unwadable depths and was dragged back to solid ground by his employer's long arms. "We'll try the mangrove swamp," said Payne. Higgins' description of the swamps as one "that a bobcat couldn't get through" was not an exaggeration. Countless mangrove trees, each with its horde of branches curving weirdly downward and rooted beneath the black water which covered the earth, formed a nightmarish obstacle through which it would have been folly for any one to attempt to force a way. Between the interwoven tops of the trees the sun found rare openings through which its rays struck bolts of light, revealing by contrast the infernolike gloom of the swamp's interior. In these rare blobs of light upon the brackish water moving objects were discernible, the fin of a fish, swimming over a shallow, the snout of a crocodile--proof that the water was salt--and the inevitable squirming of snakes, small and large. "Nothing doing here either." "No," agreed Payne. "I'll have to go up high and have a look around." Retracing the way to the large dead tree upon which the buzzards still roosted patiently, he removed his shoes and stockings and looked up at the gray, tapering trunk. "Up you go!" cried Higgins, bending his broad shoulders. Roger leaped upon them, leaped again, caught a hold on the tree and began the precarious climb upward. It was now near the end of the day and the time he reached the first spikelike branch which gave him an opportunity to rest, the sun was preparing its pyrotechnics of Florida eventide.