A REMEMBERED FACE
The next half hour proved to the three chums to be little less than a
nightmare.
They had heard before of the treacherousness of a huckleberry
swamp--there was such a swamp near their homes in which a boy and a
girl had lost their lives--but never before had they realized what an
inanimate monster such a swamp could be.
This present swamp was perhaps a quarter of a mile in diameter. It lay
low near one end of the island and was surrounded by huckleberry bushes
from four to seven and even eight feet in height--sturdy bushes that
in mid-summer bent low with their loads of fruit. In the swamp were
numerous other bushes, with here and there tufts of coarse swamp grass.
Between these bushes and tufts of grass was the treacherous ooze and
slime into which the girls were rapidly sinking.
The more they struggled to free themselves, the more deeply they were
caught. Their cries for help brought no response.
In their merry chase over the island they had run farther from the
picnic grounds than they had thought. Or perhaps the other girls, not
as lazy as they had pretended, had wandered off in another direction,
putting still greater distance between them and the unfortunate victims
in the swamp.
Exhausted between their cries for help and their efforts to free
themselves from the muck and slime, the three girl chums finally gave
up and stared at each other in helpless despair.
"I guess we'll have to stay here like flies stuck on flypaper for the
rest of our natural lives," said Nan resentfully.
"But suppose we should sink in still deeper?" wailed Sadie. "There
isn't any solid bottom to this thing. We'll be k-killed!"
"Wait a minute!" in Jo's voice there was sudden hope. "There's a board
over here. If I can only reach it----"
What she had not seen before, half hidden as it was among the heavy
bushes, was a board about a foot wide and seven or eight feet long.
From the appearance of it, it seemed to have once been a part of a
boat--an old boat probably drifted upon the island and long since
fallen to pieces.
"If you can only get it without falling in up to your neck," Nan said
anxiously. "Do be careful, Jo."
"My dear, as Miss Tully says, 'to be careful under such circumstances
is a practical impossibility.' Still----"
Reaching for the board, Jo slipped and almost fell. Nan and Sadie
screamed and made an instinctive gesture toward her, only to flounder
helplessly. The nightmare of it!
But Jo recovered herself and reached pluckily for the board again. This
time she touched it and, with the tips of her fingers, drew it toward
her.
"Jo, do you think it will bear your weight and not let you down into
the mud again?"
"If it does we won't be any worse off than we are now," said Jo grimly.
"Anyway, we've got to try something."
She tested their frail hope tentatively, then gave a cry of joy.
"Girls, the other end of it is on solid ground. I think we can make it!"
Here was good news. Jo had at least found where solid ground was.
Steadying herself by the board, Jo gradually managed to get one foot
free. Gingerly she rested it upon the board. The board sank deep into
the mud, even beneath that light weight.
"Suppose it should break!" cried Sadie, and Nan turned upon her in
exasperation.
"Stop supposing!" she cried. "We can't afford it!"
Working as carefully and quickly as she could, Jo managed to get a
foothold on the board before it became too deeply mired. She ran
lightly up it toward the part that rested on solid ground. The other
girls watched her breathlessly.
If the board _should_ break!
But it held! A moment more and Jo felt the blessed surety of solid
earth beneath her feet.
"Hooray!" cried Nan. "Now you'd better run back and get that piece of
rope in the boat. Something tells me we're going to need it."
"No, wait a minute. I think I can reach you with the board."
Dragging the board after her, Jo made her way cautiously around the
swamp, feeling each foot of ground before she ventured to rest her
weight upon it.
"There now!" she cried when she had come as near to her chums as she
dared. "I'll shove it toward you, Nan, and you see if you can catch
hold!"
Nan could not--quite. But after a desperate effort she managed to force
herself forward the required inch or two until she felt her fingers
upon the plank.
"Now, Sadie, see if you can't catch hold of Nan. Then I can pull you
both out!"
Sadie struggled hard and finally managed to catch Nan's outstretched
hand.
"Now!" cried Jo, clutching her end of the board firmly. "Heave ho, and
I'll pull you ashore!"
There was a good deal of scrambling and puffing and panting before Nan,
holding fast to the board, felt her foot strike upon solid ground.
The rest was easy, and it was only a moment before Sadie also had
joined the two disheveled, mud-drenched girls on the edge of the swamp.
They eyed each other oddly for a moment, then broke into hysterical
giggles.
"What _are_ we going to do?" cried Nan. "We never can go back to
the Hall looking like this."
"I guess we'll have to," said Jo practically. "We can't stay here all
night. That's a sure thing."
"What we need is a fire," Sadie said, as they started to skirt the
swamp and find their way to the picnic grounds. "If we could dry our
clothes we might be able to scrape some of this awful mud off them."
"Speaking of fires!" cried Jo dramatically. "Look at this!"
The girls hurried up to her and found that "this" was the ashes of a
recent campfire.
"Well, what of it?" said Sadie wonderingly. "It isn't so odd for people
to build a campfire in the woods, is it?"
"No, but this campfire was built just recently--and put out only a
short time ago," returned Jo, thoughtfully stirring some of the still
smoldering embers with her foot. "And now I wonder," she added, looking
oddly at her companions, "why these campers, whoever they were, didn't
come to our aid when we called for help. They must have heard us!"
"Miss Keeneye on the job again," Nan began banteringly, but Sadie
interrupted with a sudden exclamation.
"Look there!" she cried excitedly. "That motor boat--just putting off
from shore!"
The launch came out from behind a jutting portion of the island almost
directly beneath the spot where the girls were standing.
With a quick exclamation, Jo ran swiftly down to the water's edge, the
better to view the occupants of the boat.
One of the men turned as his companion urged the launch to greater
speed and Jo saw him distinctly. She drew back with a startled
exclamation.
"What is it, Jo?" cried Nan, at her elbow. "You look as though you had
seen a ghost."
"I've seen worse," said Jo, in a queer voice. "One of those men in the
launch was Andrew Simmer!"
It took some time for Sadie and Nan to draw a coherent story from Jo's
excited lips. Never having heard very much of Andrew Simmer before and
knowing none of the details concerning Mr. Morley's business troubles,
they naturally could guess no reason for Jo's excitement until she gave
them the more important facts.
"I've got to follow him!" Jo cried frantically. "Some way, I've got
to follow him and see where he goes. Oh, look!" she pointed excitedly
out upon the lake. A second motor boat had come into view. "Behold an
answer to prayer!"
Before either of her companions could guess her intention, she was
hailing the occupants of the second motor boat.
"Help! Help!" she cried, making a megaphone of her hands. "Help! Come
quick!"
"Good gracious, Jo!" cried Nan. "They'll think you're dying!"
"I am!" retorted Jo. "I'm dying of fear that Andrew Simmer will get
away! Oh, joy, they're heading in here!"
As the motor boat put in toward the shore, Jo waded out to meet it. Nan
and Sadie followed.
"We're soaked anyway," said the former philosophically. "And at least
the water is clean. It will even wash off some of the mud."
"Goodness, look at Jo!" gasped Sadie. "She's getting into the boat."
"Well, what did you think she was going to do--sink it?" queried Nan.
"Come on, Sade, we've got to see her through this!"
The occupants of the second motor boat were three young men. Though
scarcely more than boys in years, they seemed very old and experienced
to the three girl chums of Laurel Hall.
One of these strangers reached out a hand to Jo as she unceremoniously
scrambled over the side of the boat. Nan and Sadie followed, each
helped in turn.
"That boat!" cried Jo, pointing to the first launch, which was already
some distance up the lake. "Catch it! Please catch it! There's a
criminal in that boat! I've got to deliver him to justice! Can your
launch make it?"
"Young lady, my boat can do anything," said the boy who held the
steering wheel. "If you want to overhaul that boat, why, we'll overhaul
that boat."
"Oh, please, please do!" cried Jo, almost beside herself with
excitement. "Everything depends upon it! Everything!"