TRICKED BY TWO.

"This is a public path," said Guy Hereford quietly.

"Ay, but you can't use it," returned the man he faced, with an ugly glint in his eyes.

"All the same, I'm going to," said Guy coolly. "I'll trouble you to move out of my way, Mr. Harvey Blissett."

For a moment the two faced one another on the narrow sandy road between the bare, barbed-wire fences over which hung the fragrantly blooming orange branches. Both were mounted, Hereford on a well-groomed Florida pony, Blissett on a big, rough Montana, an ugly beast with a nose like a camel and a savage eye.

"I'll give you one more chance," growled Blissett. "Turn and make tracks."

"This is my road," said Hereford, as serenely as ever.

"Then 'twill be your road to kingdom come," roared Blissett, and flashed his pistol from his hip pocket.

But Hereford's steady eyes had never wavered. He was no tenderfoot. With the bully's movement he ducked, and at the same moment drove spurs into his pony's flanks.

As Blissett's bullet whistled harmlessly into the opposite trees the chest of Hereford's pony met the shoulder of the Montana with a shock that staggered it, and before Blissett could pull trigger a second time the loaded end of the other's quirt crashed across his head.

Blissett dropped like a shot rabbit. At the same time the Montana gave a vicious squeal, lashed out violently, and bolted.

Hereford was off his pony in a moment, and, with an exclamation of horror ran to Blissett and stooped over him. But a single glance was enough. One of the Montana's heels had caught the unfortunate man exactly on the same spot where Hereford's blow had fallen and crushed his skull like an eggshell.

He was dead as a log.

"This is a rough deal!" said Hereford slowly, as he rose to his feet. "Wonder what I'd better do."

The trouble was that every one for miles round knew the bad blood which existed between the young orange grower and his neighbor.

Blissett was a cattleman who had bitterly resented the fencing of the land which Hereford had bought. He had deliberately cut the wires and let his scrub cattle in among the young trees, doing endless damage. Hereford had retaliated by pounding the whole bunch so that Blissett had to pay heavily to regain them.

Then Blissett had brought a law suit to force Hereford to give a public road through his place. He had won his suit, but done more than he intended, for the authorities extended the road through Blissett's own land and forced him to fence it.

It was on this extension of the road that the tragedy had taken place.

"If I go to the sheriff there's sure to be trouble," said Hereford aloud. "Ten to one they'll bring it in manslaughter."

"Murder, more likely," came a voice from behind, and Hereford, starting round, found himself face to face with his cousin, Oliver Deacon, who, hoe in hand, had just come through the fence from among the orange trees.

"Why murder?" asked Hereford sharply.

The other, a sallow-faced man some years older than Hereford, gave a disagreeable chuckle. "My dear Guy, every one knows the terms you and Blissett were on. There'll be a jury of crackers, all pals of the late unlamented, and they'll be only too glad to have a chance of taking it out of a man they think an aristocrat."

"What's the good of talking rot?" exclaimed Hereford impatiently. "If you were working in the grove I suppose you saw the whole thing?"

"Yes, I saw it," replied Deacon slowly.

"That's all right then. You know he brought it on himself."

There was a very peculiar look in Deacon's close-set eyes as he glanced at his cousin.

"I saw you hit Blissett over the head with the lead end of your quirt," he said in the same measured tones.

"What in thunder do you mean, Oliver? Didn't you see his pony kick him on the head?"

"I'm not so sure about that," was Deacon's reply.

Guy Hereford stared at his cousin in blank amazement.

"Will you kindly tell me what you do mean?" he asked icily.

"Yes, I'll tell you," said Deacon harshly. "Look here, Guy, I'm full up with playing bottle washer, and it seems to me this gives me just the chance I've been looking for. Need I explain?"

"I think you'd better," said Guy Hereford grimly.

"All right. I'll give you straight goods. I want to be paid, and well paid, for my evidence. Here are you with a place of your own and a good allowance from your father, you've a decent house and a first-class pony. And as for me, I haven't a red cent, and am forced to do grove work like an infernal nigger. As I said before, I'm sick of it, and it's going to stop right here."

Hereford looked his cousin up and down. Then he said, "I knew you'd sunk pretty low, Oliver, but I didn't quite realize the depths you've dropped to. Whose fault is it you are hard up? Your own. You had more than I ever had, and chucked it all away. People were decent to you down here until you were caught cheating at poker. And now you want to force me to pay you hush money under threats of false evidence. May I ask how much you consider your evidence worth?"

Guy's tone of icy contempt brought a dull red flush to the other's sallow cheeks. But he answered brazenly, "I'll take a thousand dollars."

Guy laughed.

"I wouldn't give you a thousand cents."

"Then you'll hang," retorted Oliver viciously.

"Well, that won't do you any good."

"Oh, won't it? Plainly, you don't know much about Florida law, my good Guy. I'm your cousin. Don't forget that. And by the law of this State I'm your next heir. See? When you've left this vale of tears I come in for the whole outfit—your grove and everything. Now, perhaps, you'll sing another song."

Guy's face went white. Not with fear, but anger. And his gray eyes blazed with a sudden fury that made the other step hastily backward.

"You mean, skulking hound!" he cried. "You're worse—a thousand times worse—than that fellow who lies dead there. Get out of my sight before I kill you."

Oliver's eyes had the look of a vicious cur. "All right," he snarled. "You'll change your tune before I'm done with you. If you don't fork up the cash by this time to-morrow I'll go and give the sheriff a full and particular account of how you murdered Harvey Blissett."

"What's de matter, boss. Warn't dat supper cooked to suit you?"

"Supper was first-rate, Rufe. Only I've got no appetite," replied Guy.

"You done seem plumb disgruntled 'bout something ebber since you come in dis evening," said Rufus, Guy's faithful negro retainer.

Guy looked at the man's sympathetic face. He felt a longing to talk over the black business with somebody, and Rufe, he knew, would never repeat a word to any one else.

"Heard about Harvey Blissett?" he asked.

"No, sah. What he been doing?"

"He won't do anything more, Rufe. He's dead."

"You doan' mean tell me dat man dead?"

"It's quite true."

"How dat come about?" inquired Rufus, his eyes fairly goggling with eager interest.

Guy explained how Blissett had come by his end.

"Well, boss, I doan' see nuffin to worry about. 'Twaren't your fault as dat Montanny animile kick him on de head. An' anyways, we's mighty well rid ob him. Dat's my 'pinion."

"But suppose I'm accused of killing him, Rufe?"

"Dere ain't nobody as would believe dat, sah," stoutly declared Rufus.

"But if some one who hated me had seen it and gave evidence against me?"

Rufus started.

"I bet five dollar dat's dat low-down white man, Mistah Deacon!" he exclaimed.

"You're perfectly right, Rufus. That's who it is."

"And he see you, and sw'ar dat it wasn't de hawse, but your quirt done it?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Hab you done told de sheriff, sah?"

"Yes, I did that at once. Rode straight into Pine Lake."

"And what he say?"

"Told me I must come into the inquest the day after to-morrow."

"Den seem to me, sah, you done took de wind out of dat Deacon's sail. He ain't seen de sheriff befoah you."

"That's all right, Rufe, as far as it goes. Trouble is that he'll be in at the inquest to-morrow and he'll swear that it was my quirt did the trick. That is, unless I give him a thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut."

The negro's face changed suddenly from its usual smiling expression. "Den I tell you what, Massa Guy," he exclaimed with sudden ferocity. "You gib me your gun, an' I sw'ar dat man nebber go to dat inquest to-morrow."

Guy knew well that Rufe meant what he said. He was touched. "You're a good chap, Rufe, but I'm afraid your plan is hardly workable. You see you'd be hung, too."

"Not dis nigger! I nebber be found out!" cried Rufe.

"Still we won't try it," said Guy in his quiet way.

Rufe stood silent for some moments. Then he turned to go back to the kitchen.

His silence was ominous.

"Mind, Rufe," said Guy sharply. "No violence. You're not to lay a hand on my cousin."

"All right, sah," said Rufe reluctantly. "I try t'ink ob some odder plan."

The time dragged by slowly. Guy tried to write letters, but found he could not settle to anything. The fact was that he was desperately anxious.

He knew Deacon's callous, revengeful nature, and was perfectly certain that he would carry out his threat if the money to bribe him was not forthcoming. It was all true what his cousin had said. A jury of cattle owners, "crackers," as they are called in Florida, would certainly find him guilty on his cousin's evidence, and even if he escaped hanging his fate would be the awful one of twenty years' penitentiary.

For a moment he weakened and thought of paying the price. But to do so meant selling his place. He could not otherwise raise the money. Sell the place on which he had spent four years of steady, hard work! No, by Jove; anything rather than that. And even if he did so, what guarantee had he that this would be the full extent of his cousin's demands?

Absolutely none. No, he laid himself open to be blackmailed for the rest of his life. He hardened his heart, and resolved that, come what would, he would stick it out and let the beggar do his worst.

Presently he got up and went out of his tiny living room onto the veranda. The house was only a little bit of a two-roomed shack with a penthouse veranda in front. He had built it when he first came, and had been intending for some time past to put up a bigger place. Now that dream was over.

Sick at heart, Guy flung himself into a long cane chair, and presently, worn out by worry, fell asleep.

He was wakened by the pad pad of a trotting horse, and looking up sharply saw in the faint light of a late-risen moon a figure mounted on one horse and leading another passing rapidly along the sandy track outside his boundary fence.

The something familiar about the figure of the man struck him like a blow.

"By thunder, it's Deacon! What mischief is the skunk up to?" he muttered. And on the impulse of the moment he sprang from the veranda, and, slipping round the dark end of the house, made for the stable.

In a minute he had saddle and bridle on Dandy, and, leading the animal out through the bars at the far end of the grove, was riding cautiously on his cousin's track.

At first he made sure Deacon was going to Pine Lake. To his great surprise the man presently turned off the main road and took a cut across a creek ford, and round the end of a long cypress swamp.

"Must be going to Orange Port," he muttered. "There's something very odd about this. And what in thunder is he doing with that second horse?"

They came to a bit of open savanna dotted with great islands of live oak. The moon was higher now, and the grassy plain was bathed in soft, silver light. As Deacon passed out of the deep shadow of the pine forest Guy gave a gasp.

The horse that Deacon was leading was Blissett's Montana pony.

Guy actually chuckled.

"I'll bet a farm he's picked it up and means to sell it in Orange Port," he said to himself. "Well, it mayn't save me, but at any rate I'll be able to make things hot for him."

It was sixteen miles to Orange Port. Deacon, with Guy still at his heels, reached the place about six in the morning, and took the animal straight to a small livery stable, the owner of which was Sebastian Gomez, a mulatto of anything but good repute.

Guy dogged him cautiously, and when he had left the stable and ridden off, went in himself, put Dandy up, and had him fed.

Then he went to work cautiously, and by dint of a tip to one of the colored men about the place, found that his precious cousin had indeed sold the Montana to the owner of the stable, and had got fifty dollars for the animal.

"Not such a bad night's work," said Guy to himself as, after breakfast and a bath, he rode home again. He reached his place about nine to find Rufus much disturbed at his long absence. Merely telling the negro that he had been away on business, he lay down and had a much-needed sleep.

At four he woke and rode off to Pine Lake. He meant to find a lawyer to whom he could intrust his case on the following day, but to his deep disappointment Vanbuten, a clever young Bostonian and a great pal of his, was away at Ormond for a week's sea bathing. There was nothing for it but to send him an urgent telegram, begging him to return at once, and then ride home through the warm tropic starlight.

"Wonder if I shall ever ride back to the dear little old shop again," thought Guy sadly, as he opened the gate and led his pony in and up the neat path through the palmetto scrub. He loved every inch of his place, as a man can only love a property which by the sweat of his own brow he has carved out of the primeval forest.

Arrived at the house, he stabled Dandy and fed him, a job which he never trusted to any one else, not even the faithful Rufe.

As he entered the house he could hear Rufe busy with pots and pans in the kitchen. "He'll miss me, if no one else does," muttered Guy; and, feeling desperately depressed, he went into his bedroom to change his boots and coat. Hereford, being a Boston-bred man, was one of those who, even when baching it alone in the wilds, still try to keep up something of their old home customs.

He struck a match and lighted the lamp, then, as the glow fell upon his cot, he started back with a cry of horror.

TO BE CONCLUDED.