Raymond S. Spears

“ Slipping out into the dripping street, the two escaping prisoners scurried around the corners till they were out of town, and then they sogged their way northward toward their own familiar Dark Bend swamps. Durm Clinchell had never broken jail before, and he was angry now to think that he had to do it. Free, and in his own timber-brakes, he could defy the world, he told himself. He would let no man rob him of his hard-earned lands!
That was his idea—to hold the plantation and timber-lands by force against any invader. Rip Morlung promised to help him. ”

“ The attack on the Deerport National Bank hurt local pride in the town, where President Lesgar was every man's friend.
Rich as he was, Clinchell had stepped too far over the bounds, and the Dark Bend swamps had lost, for a time at least, their influence in politics. The very quality of the food served to Clinchell was significant to the wilful man, for it was precisely the same as that of the other white prisoners. It did him no good to complain. After one outburst he held his peace and consulted with the more experienced Morlung, who had long been used to having every man's hand against him. ”

“ One day Cashier Dovent, of the Planter Bank at River Bridge, made a post-haste trip down to Deerport for a conference with Clinchell. He brought with him a sheaf of papers showing various angles of the bank's condition. He asked for and obtained a private interview with Clinchell in the sheriff's office.
"You see how it is," Dovent summed up. "Those Mendova banks and trust companies have called in all their loans to us. Look where that leaves us!" ”