[1] Janeen, a young girl living in Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp near the small city of Waycross, helps park ranger Jim when his foot is caught in a poachers' trap and learns to trust him.
When she tells him about meeting ranger Jim, Pa reveals details about her past — his own name is Nat and several years ago he lived with and assisted an old doctor who saved his life.
Nat, who suspected that Doc intended to sell her, hid nearby, used a hatchet to kill the slavers and, afraid of the law, retreated with Janeen to the swamp.
[3] As Janeen says goodbye to Pa/Nat and goes to meet Jim, escaped convict Carol Martin and her boyfriend Steve arrive at the cabin and kill Nat with the last bullet in their shotgun.
At the same time, as Janeen is prodded through the swamp by the fugitive couple, her anger at Nat's murder and realization that the newcomers are at a loss in the watery wilderness, leads her to guide them towards a quicksand pit and, as Steve is sucked in, Carol runs and falls into alligator infested waters.
As Ella Martin cries out her grief upon seeing Gifford's bloodied corpse, Denton Cole tells her that Carol is also dead, "the swamp girl, there, fed her to a big gator".