THE TRAIL IN THE SWAMP
When the eight scouts found that they were leaving solid ground, and
actually getting to where little bogs surrounded them on almost every
side, they had a queer feeling. Up to now none of them had ever had much
experience in passing through a real swamp, because there were no such
places nearer to Beverly than this one, and eighteen miles is quite too
far for boys to walk on ordinary occasions, when seeking fun.
They looked around time and again, though none of them dared loiter, and
Paul, as the leader, was setting a pretty good pace.
Just behind Paul came Seth. The scoutmaster had asked him to keep close
at his heels, for since Seth had acquired more or less of a fund of
swamp lore from the man who trapped muskrats for their pelts, in the
fall and winter, if any knotty problems came up to be solved the chances
were Seth would be of more use than any one of the other fellows.
Evidently they were in for some new and perhaps novel experiences. And
there is nothing that pleases the average boy more than to look upon
unfamiliar scenes, unless it is to run up against a bit of an adventure.
One thing Paul had made sure to fetch along with him when taking this
big hike, and that was his little camp hatchet. Fritz had begged to be
allowed to carry his old Marlin shotgun, under the plea that they might
run across some ferocious animal like a wildcat, or a skunk, and would
find a good use for the reliable firearm; but the scoutmaster had set
his foot down firmly there.
But they would have to make numerous fires while on the way, and a
little hatchet was apt to come in very handy.
And the feel of it in his belt had given Paul his idea about "blazing"
the trees just as soon as they no longer had the trapper's path to serve
them as a guide against their return.
It is a very easy thing to make a trail in this way; only care must
always be taken to make the slices, showing the white wood underneath
the bark, on that side of the tree most likely to be seen by the
returning pilgrim. Great loss of time must result if one always had to
go behind every tree in order to find the blaze that had been so
carefully given, not to mention the chances of becoming confused, and
eventually completely turned around.
That path twisted and turned in the most amazing and perplexing manner
possible.
Although Paul had purposely warned the boys to try and keep tabs of the
points of the compass as they passed along, in less than ten minutes
after striking the swamp proper it is doubtful whether one of them could
have told correctly just where the north lay, if asked suddenly; though
by figuring it out, looking at the sun, and all that, they might have
replied with a certain amount of accuracy after a while.
But then they felt sure Paul knew; and somehow or other they had always
been in the habit of relying on the scoutmaster to do some of their
thinking for them--a bad habit it is, too, for any boys to let
themselves fall into, and one that Paul often took them to task for.
They would cheerfully admit the folly of such a course, and promise to
reform, yet on the next occasion it would be the same old story of
depending on Paul.
"Path seems to be petering out a heap, Paul," remarked Seth, when
another little time had crept along, and they had penetrated still
deeper into the swamp, with a very desolate scene all around them, water
surrounding many of the trees that grew there with swollen boles, such
as always seems to be the case where they exist in swampy regions.
"Yes, I was thinking that myself," replied the other; "and it's about
time for me to begin using my little hatchet, even if I don't happen to
be George Washington."
"Let's stop for a breath, and listen," suggested Eben; "who knows now
but what we might be nearer where the balloon dropped than we thought.
P'raps we could even get an answer if we whooped her up a bit."
"How about that, Paul?" demanded Fritz, who could shout louder perhaps
than any other boy in Beverly, and often led the hosts as a cheer
captain, when exciting games were on with other school teams.
"Not a bad idea, I should say," was the reply, as the patrol leader
nodded his head in approval. "Suppose you lead off, Fritz, and let it
be a concerted yell."
Accordingly Fritz marshaled them all in a line, and gave the word. Such
an outbreak as followed awoke the sleeping echoes in the swamp, and sent
a number of startled birds flying madly away. Indeed, Jotham noticed a
rabbit bounding off among the hummocks of higher ground; and Noodles
afterwards declared that he had seen the "cutest little pussycat"
ambling away; though the others vowed it must have been a skunk, and
gave Noodles fair warning that if ever he tried to catch such a cunning
"pussycat" he would be buried up to the neck until his clothes were
fumigated.
"Don't hear any answer, do you, fellers?" remarked Seth, after the
echoes had finally died away again.
Everybody admitted that there seemed to have been no reply to the shout
they had sent booming along.
"Hope we didn't scare him by making such a blooming row," Seth went on
to say.
"I'm bothered more by thinking that he may have been killed, or very
badly hurt when the balloon fell down," Paul ventured to say.
The thought made them all serious again. In imagination they pictured
that valiant fellow who had taken his life in his hands in the interest
of sport, possibly lying there on the ground senseless, or buried in the
slimy mud, which could be seen in so many places all around them. And it
was far from a pleasing prospect that confronted those eight scouts,
though none of them gave any sign of wanting to back out.
"Mebbe a blast from my horn would reach him?" suggested Eben.
"Suppose you try it, eh? Paul?" Fritz remarked.
"No harm can come of it, so pitch in Eben," the other told the troop
bugler.
"And put in all the wind you c'n scrape together," added Seth.
Accordingly Eben blew a blast that could have been heard fully a mile
away. He grew red in the face as he sent out his call; and doubtless
such a sweet medley of sounds had never before been heard in that
desolate looking place since the time of the ice period.
"No use; he don't answer; or if he does, we don't get it," Seth
observed, in a disappointed tone.
"Then the only thing for us to do is to go ahead," Andy proposed.
"Paul's getting his bearings again," remarked Eben.
"I wanted to make dead sure," the scoutmaster observed, with a glow of
determination in his eyes. "You see, we tried to note just about where
the balloon seemed to fall; and it takes a lot of figuring to keep that
spot in your mind all the while you're turning and twisting along this
queer trail. But I feel pretty sure of my ground."
"Huh! wish I did the same," said Seth, holding up one of his feet, and
showing that he had been in black mud half way to his knee, when he
made some sort of bad guess about the footing under him.
Apparently Paul was now ready to once more start out. But they saw him
give a quick hack at a tree, and upon looking as they passed they
discovered that he had taken quite a slice off the bark, leaving a white
space as big as his two hands, and which could easily be seen at some
distance off in the direction whither they were bound.
That was called a "blaze."
If Seth thought he was having his troubles, they were slight compared
with those that attacked one other member of the little band of would-be
rescuers.
Noodles, besides being a good-natured chap, was more or less awkward.
Being so very stout had more or less to do with this; and besides, he
had a habit of just ambling along in any sort of happy-go-lucky way.
Now, while this might not be so very bad under ordinary conditions, when
there was a decent and level road to be traveled over, it brought about
all sorts of unexpected and unwelcome difficulties when they were trying
to keep to a narrow and crooked path.
Twice already had Noodles made a slip, and gone in knee-deep, to be
dragged out by some of his comrades. And he was glancing around at the
gloomy aspect with a look approaching _fear_ in his eyes, just as though
he began to think that they were invading a haunted region where
respectable scouts had no business to go, even on an errand of mercy.
Such was the wrought-up condition of his nerves, that when a branch
which some one had held back, and then let slip, came in contact with
the shins of Noodles, he gave out a screech, and began dancing around
like mad.
"Snakes! and as big as your wrist too! I saw 'em!" he called out,
forgetting to talk in his usual broken English way, because of his
excitement.
They had some difficulty in convincing him that it was only a branch
that had caressed his ankle, and not a venomous serpent; for Noodles
confessed that if he dreaded anything on the face of the earth it was
just snakes, any kind of crawling varmints, from the common everyday
garter species to the big boa constrictor to be seen in the menagerie
that came with the annual circus visiting Beverly.
Again and again was Paul making good use of his handy little camp
hatchet, and Seth took note of the manner in which the blazed trail was
thus fashioned. It may be all very fine to do things in theory, but
there is nothing like a little practical demonstration. And in all
likelihood not one of these seven boys but would be fully able to make
just such a plain trail, should the necessity ever arise. When one has
_seen_ a thing done he can easily remember the manner of doing it; but
it is so easy to get directions confused, and make blunders.
Paul was not hurrying now.
A mistake would be apt to cost them dear, and he believed that an ounce
of prevention is always better than a pound of cure. If they could avoid
going wrong, it did not matter a great deal that they made slow
progress. "Be sure you're right and then go ahead" was the motto of the
famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett, and Paul had long ago taken it as
his pattern too.
Besides, it paid, for any one could see that they were steadily getting
in deeper and deeper. The swamp was becoming much wilder now; and it was
not hard to realize that a man getting lost here, and losing his head,
might, after his bearings were gone, go wandering at haphazard for days,
possibly crossing his own trail more than a few times.
It seemed a lonesome place. Animals they saw none. Perhaps there might
be deer in the outer portions, but they never came in here. Although the
scouts saw no evidences that wild-cats lived in the swamp, they could
easily picture some such fierce animal crouching in this clump of matted
trees or back of that heavy bush, watching their passage with fiery
eyes.
The scouts found their long staves of considerable use from time to
time. Had Noodles for instance been more adept in the use of the one he
carried he might have been saved from a whole lot of trouble. Perhaps
this might prove to be a valuable lesson to the boy. He could not help
but see how smartly the others kept themselves from slipping off the
narrow ridge of ground by planting their staves against some convenient
stump, or the butt of a tree, anywhere but in the oozy mud.
"Wait up for me!" Noodles would call out every little while, when he
fell behind, for he seemed to have a horror lest he might slip into that
horrible bed of mud, and be sucked down before his chums could reach
him. "It iss nodt fair to leave me so far behindt der rest. How wouldt
you feel if you rescued der argonaut, and lose your chump; dell me dot?
Give eferypody a chance, and--mine gootness, I mighty near proke my pack
dot time," for he had come down with a tremendous thump, when his feet
slipped out from under him.
But as a rule boys are not apt to give a clumsy comrade much sympathy,
and hence only rude laughter greeted this fresh mishap on the part of
Noodles.
"Nature looked out for you when she saw what an awkward chap you were
going to be, Noodles," called back Fritz. "You're safely padded all
right, and don't need to feel worried when you sit down, sudden-like. If
it was me, now, there might be some talking, because I'm built more on
the jack-knife plan."
"Oh! what is that?" cried Eben, as a strange, blood-curdling sound came
from a point ahead of them; just as though some unlucky fellow was being
sucked down in the embrace of that slimy mud, and was giving his last
shriek for help.
As the other scouts had of course heard the same thing, all of the
detachment came to a sudden halt, and looking rather apprehensively at
one another, they waited to learn if the weird gurgling sound would be
repeated, but all was deathly still.