The heat from the fires spread along the ground beneath the
slightly raised sleeping benches, smothering or drying up such dampness
as might otherwise rise from the earth after sunset. Distributed as
the heat was, it formed a barrier which shut out miasmatic fogs from
creeping over the high ground from the swamp. It was the Seminole
system by which these Indians had survived in their unhealthy
environment.
"She may not look so bad when we go over her carefully," added Higgins.
"Thanks," said Payne. "Optimism is good medicine to sleep on. I'm
stung, of course. The Prairie Highlands Company sold this stuff to me
as virgin prairie sod ready for the plow. I discounted that by fifty
per cent, considering the low price. I knew enough about this land to
know, in spite of lying maps, faked soil reports and photographs, that
there would be some water here. I hired you because I was prepared for
a drainage proposition. But I didn't think they were crooked and nervy
enough to sell me a lake--that senator writing letters on his official
stationery."
"Maybe you've got on the wrong tract?"
"You know better; you went over the maps yourself. No; they've got the
crust to show this hammock in their photographs; I recognized it at
once. They showed it with fat, black grassland stretching away on
every side of it.
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