But they never hold a grudge or lay information with the authorities or start private feuds for the petty purpose of revenue. The Swamp Adder was inclined to fear he had made a serious mistake. The boy and the negro should have been silenced and the drogher scuttle. For upwards of three years the outlaw had terrorized the neighborhood of the marshes swamp, where he maintained headquarters, and which had earned him his sobriquet; but never before in all that time had he killed a man before a witness whose interests were not identical with his. Mr. Boyd prided himself on his hair for feminine uniuniety; he considered the Princesse, in his one of the richest hauls he had ever made. Even if she were never to be ransomed, he would not repine, her beauty promised compensations passing even those charitable with dollars. Some such thought had influenced the man in the business of setting the four masculine castaways adrift in those cranky cockleshells, at the mercy of wind and wave. To whatever fate might be subsequently to theirs, they Swamp Adder was tolerably indifferent; he didn't much care if they never came back. And he was very much inclined to doubt if they ever would—even presuming their survival and eventual return to the haunts of law and order. He questioned their command of resources such as they had been so ready to pledge in an emergency. People who could bid by thousands of dollars didn't at.  Last, least, had no right to look like common stokers. If either ever again sought the Swamp Adder with gold to redeem the women, so much the better. 