“Mebbe you got the fever,” she suggested.

“Mought be. Don’t seem like I kin stand it. Seems like the only thing’d cool me’d be lyin’ deep down in water, some’eres, with chips o’ ice floatin’ around in it.”

He drew his hat over his face for protection against any rays of the sun that might filter through the leaves as the afternoon wore on. Florry resumed her outstretched position near him. In the fevered coma of mid-afternoon there was no sound, neither of bird nor beast, neither of grass nor pine nor palmetto. The September heat smothered them all against her parched, unbreathing breast.

A car stopping in the road wakened them from their siesta. Two men were pushing their way in to the camp. Mart reared to his feet. Florry stepped behind the oak.

“Hit’s them,” he said.

Cap’n Tack lifted a hand in greeting.

“Howdy, Mart,” he called jovially.

“Howdy.”

The storekeeper leaned down casually to pick sandspurs from his pants.

“Mart, meet the sheriff.”

The sheriff was a sallow fellow with thin yellow hands always open for chance fees. He did his profitable duty mournfully, as though the expense and trouble fell all upon his hunched shoulders.

“Howdy, Mart.”

Mart’s eyes moved up and down the man’s frame, noting the uneasy gesture of the nervous fingers toward the ponderous revolver in the hip holster. He did not acknowledge the sheriff’s greeting. He shifted his weight to lean one shoulder against the oak tree.

As though he were the host, Cap’n Tack waved toward the upturned boxes about the camp.

“Set down, Sheriff.”

The officer eased himself to a seat.

“Nice camp you got here.”

“Couldn’t git you one no sorrier,” Mart said.

The sheriff looked about him. He caught sight of Florry’s dark head leaning forward around the oak, her bright alarmed eyes on him.

“How do, Ma’am. How you?”

She bobbed her head to him.

Cap’n Tack drew out his plug of tobacco and pared off a shaving. He held it out to the sheriff questioningly.

“Reckon I’ll smoke a cigarette.”

The officer passed his package. Mart hesitated and took one, lighting it quickly with his own match. Cap’n Tack worked up his chew. The cigarette smoke hung blue and heavy on the thick air. A buzzard wheeled in the hot sky. A hawk screamed from a near-by pine, Mart smoked thoughtfully, as though he were alone. The sheriff cleared his throat.

“Mart,” he said, “I’m sorry to crowd you, but I reckon you’d best hand over your traps for your debt to Tack here. He says he’s got no other way to collect.”

“That ain’t so. Soon’s I kin git to trappin’ I kin git ketched up.” Mart spoke slowly, watching the end of his cigarette.

“I got no way o’ knowin’,” interrupted the storekeeper, “he ain’t goin’ to jest pick up an’ go off, traps an’ all.”

“I ain’t fixin’ to go off.”

“That’s what he says.” The storekeeper nodded suggestively to the officer, who nodded back.