"Don't try to come that on us; don't waste your breath. Think we're dummies? This is our land. We bought it last week. And I'm telling you to keep off of it from now on. Oh, I got the right description; a thousand acres west of a line from Deer Key there to the Cypress Swamp. Want to look at the deed? Give you our lawyer's address if you do." "Who is your lawyer?" "Big Tom Connors, Washington, D. C. And if it'll make you feel any better--why, he's a law partner of Senator Fairclothe." "If you think you have really bought this land," said Roger slowly, "you have been cheated." "Huh! Do we look like easy marks? Listen, boh: you're the fish that got hooked. You bought a bum title. Get that? Didn't know this little piece of dirt was in the courts, eh? Well, it was; and Big Tom got it, and we got it from him. Your title ain't worth the paper it's written on. Now, you're guilty of tresp----Hold on!" Roger had thrown his self-control to the winds. He leaped into the canal and wallowed across. "Get off, my land!" he growled. "Get off!" The gunman was running for dear life down the spoil bank. On the opposite side his companions were in full flight. Payne did not follow. He stood and watched them, outraged to the marrow. "And keep off, too!" he shouted grimly. "Tell your lawyer, tell your sheriff, tell 'em all, keep off!" XXVIII "It's impossible!" Roger was too stunned to grasp the true significance of the situation at once. "The Senator's company wouldn't have sold me this land if there was a suit on it." Then, little by little, the facts began to clarify in his mind. Connors, the lawyer, was Senator Fairclothe's law partner; Fairclothe had been anxious to see the tract drained. "Oh, my God!" he groaned, "Are they that rotten!" "But you had the title searched before you bought?" said Higgins. "Of course. Right back to the first Spanish land grant, and there wasn't a flaw in it." "Then those fellows are stung." "Pooh! Those cheap toughs. They're nothing but tools. There's probably been a false transfer made to their names, but that's all; they were picked because they were fighters. Well, whoever picked them hasn't got the least suspicion of what he's started." "Land titles are rotten things," growled Higgins. "Specially when land sharks are juggling them." "They waited until the ditches were dug," mused Roger. "They didn't know it would make good land. And then they struck! Higgins, I'm going right down to Garman's and have a little talk with Senator Fairclothe." "Bet you won't find him. Bet he's away selling this tract again to some other sucker."