Her older brother grinned. "After that example of your trust in me, I'll have to. I agree, he is not the sort you would care to introduce to your more particular friends. But this visit seems to suggest something—"
"That he has the wind up?" Val asked.
"There are indications of that, I think. Something LeFleur has done has stirred our friends into direct action. We shall probably have more of it within the immediate future. So I want you, Ricky, to go to town. Madame LeFleur has very kindly offered to put you up—"
Each tiny curl on Ricky's head seemed to bristle with indignation. "Oh, no you don't, Rupert Ralestone! You don't get me away from here when there are exciting things going on. I hardly think that our friend with the slimy manner will use machine-guns to blast us out. And if he does—well, it wouldn't be the first time that this house was used as a fortress. I'm not going one step out of here unless you two come with me."
Rupert shrugged. "As I can't very well hog-tie you to get you to town, I suppose you will have to stay. But I am going to send for Lucy." With that parting shot he turned and went in.
Lucy arrived shortly before noon. She was accompanied by a portion of her large family—four, Val counted, including that Sam who had become Ricky's faithful shadow.
"What's all dis Ah heah 'bout some mans sayin' he am de Ralestone?" she demanded of Ricky. "De policemans oughta lock him up. Effen he comes botherin' 'roun' heah agin I'll ten' to him!"
With that she marched majestically into the kitchen, elbowed Letty-Lou out of her way, and proceeded to stir up a batch of brown molasses cookies. "'Cause dey is fillin' fo' boys. An' Mistuh Val, heah, he needs some moah fat 'crost dose skinny ribs. Letty-Lou, yo'all ain't feedin' dese men-folks ri'. Now yo' chillens," she swooped down upon her own family, "yo'all gits outa heah an' don't fuss me."
"They can come with me," offered Ricky. "I'm trying to find that maze which is marked on the garden plans."
"Miss 'Chanda, yo'all ain't a'goin' 'way 'afo' yoah brothah gits through his wo'k. He done tol' me to keep an eye on yo'all. Why don't yo'all go visit wi' Miss Charity?"
Ricky looked at her watch. "All right. She'll be through her morning work by now. I'll take the children, Lucy."
To Val's open surprise, she obeyed Lucy, meekly moving off without a single protest. One of the boys remained behind and offered shyly to take the horse back to Sam's place. When Lucy agreed that it would be all right, Val boosted him into the saddle where he clung like a jockey.
"An' wheah is yo'all goin', Mistuh Val?" asked Lucy, cutting out round cookies with a downward stroke of the drinking glass she had pressed into service. The regular cutter was, in her opinion, too small.
"Down toward the bayou. I'll be back before lunch," he said, and hurried out before she could as definitely dispose of him as she had of Ricky.
Val struck off into the bushes until he came to one of the paths that crossed the wilderness. As it ran in the direction of the bayou, he turned into it. Then for the second time he came into the glen of the pool and passed along the path Jeems had known. So somehow Val was not surprised, when he came out upon the edge of the bayou levee, to see Jeems sitting there.
"Hello!"
The swamper looked up at Val's hail but this time he did not leave.
"Hullo," he answered sullenly.
Val stood there, ill at ease, while the swamper eyed him composedly. What could he say now? Val's embarrassment must have been very apparent, for after a long moment Jeems smiled derisively.
"Yo' goin' ridin' in them funny pants?" he asked, pointing to the other's breeches.
"Well, that's what they are intended for," Val replied.
"Wheah's youah hoss?"
"I sent him back to Sam's." Val was beginning to feel slightly warm. He decided that Jeems' manners were not all that they might be.
"Sam!" the swamp boy spat into the water. "He's a—"
But what Sam was, in the opinion of the swamper, Val never learned, for at that moment Ricky burst from between two bushes.
"Well, at last," she panted, "I've gotten rid of my army. Val, do you think that Lucy is going to be like this all the time—order us about, I mean?"
"Who's that?" Jeems was on his feet looking at Ricky.
"Ricky," her brother said, "this is Jeems. My sister Richanda."
"Yo' one of the folks up at the big house?" he asked her directly.
"Why, yes," she answered simply.
"Yo' don' act like yo' was." He stabbed his finger at both of them. "Yo' don't walk with youah noses in the air looking down at us—"
"Of course we don't!" interrupted Ricky. "Why should we, when you know more about this place than we do?"
"What do yo' mean by that?" he flashed out at her, his sullen face suddenly dark.
"Why—why—" Ricky faltered, "Charity Biglow said that you knew all about the swamp—"
His tense position relaxed a fraction. "Oh, yo' know Miss Charity?"
"Yes. She showed us the picture she is painting, the one you are posing for," Ricky went on.
"Miss Charity is a fine lady," he returned with conviction. He shifted from one bare foot to the other. "Ah'll be goin' now." With no other farewell he slipped over the side of the levee into his canoe and headed out into midstream. Nor did he look back.
Lucy departed after dinner that evening to bed down her family before returning with Letty-Lou to occupy one of the servant's rooms over the side wing. Rupert had gone with her to interview Sam. Val gathered that Sam had some notion of trying to reintroduce the growing of indigo, a crop which had been forsaken for sugar-cane at the beginning of the nineteenth century when a pest had destroyed the entire indigo crop of that year all over Louisiana.
"Let's go out in the garden," suggested Ricky.
"What for?" asked her brother. "To provide a free banquet for mosquitoes? No, thank you, let's stay here."
"You're lazy," she countered.
"You may call it laziness; I call it prudence," he answered.
"Well, I'm going anyway," she made a decision which brought Val reluctantly to his feet. For mosquitoes or no mosquitoes, he was not going to allow Ricky to be outside alone.
They followed the path which led around the side of the house until it neared the kitchen door. When they reached that point Ricky halted.
"Listen!"
A plaintive miaow sounded from the kitchen.
"Oh, bother! Satan's been left inside. Go and let him out."
"Will you stay right here?" Val asked.
"Of course. Though I don't see why you and Rupert have taken to acting as if Fu Manchu were loose in our yard. Now hurry up before he claws the screen to pieces. Satan, I mean, not the worthy Chinese gentleman."
But Satan did not meet Val at the door. Apparently, having received no immediate answer to his plea, he had withdrawn into the bulk of the house. Speaking unkind things about him under his breath, Val started across the dark kitchen.
Suddenly he stopped. He felt the solid edge of the table against his thigh. When he put out his hand he touched the reassuring everyday form of Lucy's stone cooky jar. He was in their own pleasant everyday kitchen.
But—
He was not alone in that house!
There had been the faintest of sounds from the forepart of the main section, a sound such as Satan might have caused. But Val knew—knew positively—that Satan was guiltless. Someone or something was in the Long Hall.
He crept by the table, hoping that he could find his way without running into anything. His hand closed upon the knob of the door opening upon the back stairs used by Letty-Lou. If he could get up them and across the upper hall, he could come down the front stairs and catch the intruder.
It took Val perhaps two minutes to reach the head of the front stairs, and each minute seemed a half-hour in length. From below he could hear a regular pad, pad, as if from stocking feet on the stone floor. He drew a deep breath and started down.