WHERE NO FOOT HAS EVER TROD
"Now whatever do you suppose made that racket?" demanded Seth.
"Sounded just like a feller getting drowned, and with his mouth half
full of water. But I don't believe it could have been a human being, do
you, Paul?" and Eben turned to the one in command of the troop.
"No, I don't," returned the scoutmaster, promptly. "More than likely it
was some sort of a bird."
"A bird make a screechy sound like that?" echoed the doubting Eben.
"Some sort of heron or crane. They make queer noises when they fight, or
carry on in a sort of dance. I've read lots of things about cranes that
are hard to believe, yet the naturalists stand for the truth of the
accounts."
Paul started off again, as though not dismayed in the slightest by the
strange squawk, half human in its way. And his example spurred the
others on to follow in his wake, so that once more they were making
steady progress.
"I wouldn't care so much," grumbled Fritz, as he trailed along, "if only
I had a gun along. But it's tough luck to be smooching through a place
like this, where a sly old cat may be watching you from the branch
overhead, and your trusty Marlin hanging on the nails at home."
"They say you always see plenty of game when you haven't got a gun; and
so I guess we'll run across all sorts of things, from bobcats to
alligators!" Paul went on to remark, whimsically, but there was one
scout who chose to take his words seriously, and this was Noodles.
"What's that about alligators?" he called out from his place at the rear
of the little procession. "Blease don't dell me now as we shall some
reptiles meet up mit pefore we finish dis exblorations. If dere iss one
thing I don't like, worser as snakes, dose pe alligators. I would go
across der street to avoid dem. You moost some fun pe making when you
say dot, Paul?"
"Sure I am, Noodles," replied the scoutmaster quickly, "because there
are no alligators or crocodiles native to the state of Indiana. I
believe they have a few lobsters over in Indianapolis, but they don't
count. But the chances are we will run across some queer things before
we get out of this place."
"What gets me," remarked Jotham, "is the way the thing came on us. Why,
we'd just about said that we'd like to explore the old swamp, from
curiosity if nothing else, when that balloon hove in sight, and settled
down where we'd have to push right into the center of the place to find
the man who was hanging to the wreck."
"Well, we had our wish answered on the spot, didn't we?" questioned the
patrol leader, "and it came in such a way that we couldn't well back
out. So here we are, up to our necks in business."
"I only hopes as how we won't pe up to our necks in somedings else
pefore long," came a whine from the rear, that made more than one fellow
chuckle.
A number of times Paul stopped, for one reason or another. Now it was
some little imprint of animal feet that had attracted his attention in
the harder mud at the side of the narrow ridge he was following; then
again he wanted to listen, and renew his observations.
Seth was watching him closely. Somehow he was reminded of that grizzled
old carpenter whom he had observed, when the addition was being put to
their house, and who, after measuring a board three blessed times, and
picking up his saw, made ready to cut it in twain, when, possessed of an
idea that he must not make a miscalculation, laid down his saw, and went
to work to measure it for the fourth time!
Paul was not quite so bad as all that, but he did like to make sure he
was right before taking a step that could not be recovered, once it was
gone.
"There's one thing sure," Seth could not help remarking, after he had
watched Paul for some time, and noted how confident the other seemed
with every forward step that was taken.
"What might that be, Seth?" demanded Babe Adams, when the other paused.
"If that feller I talked with, the one that hunts muskrats around here
in the season, had been just half as smart as Paul, he never would a
lost hisself in the swamps, and come near starving to death."
"So say we all of us!" added Jotham.
"That's as neat a compliment as I ever had paid me, boys; though I
hardly think I deserve it, yet. Wait and see if we get lost, or not. The
proof of the pudding's in the eating of it, you know. Talk is cheap and
butters no parsnips, they say. I like to _do_ things. But honestly
speaking, I believe we're getting through this place pretty smartly."
"But she keeps agettin' darker right along, Paul?" complained Noodles,
taking advantage of a brief halt to pick up a stick and start to wiping
the dark ooze from the bottom of his trousers.
"That only means we're pushing steadily in toward the center; and I'm
beginning to lose my fear about getting there. Perhaps, after all, it
may be an easy thing to put our feet where those of no other white man
has ever trod."
Paul spoke with an assurance that carried the rest along with him. That
had ever been one of his strongest points at school in the leadership of
the class athletic and outdoor sports team.
It was getting more and more difficult for several of the scouts to
follow their leader. The narrow ledge had been bad enough, but when it
came to passing along slippery logs, with the water all around, and a
bath sure to follow the slightest mishap, Eben's nerve gave way.
"If it's going to keep up like this, Paul, you'll have to drop me out,
because I just can't do it, and that's a fact!" he wailed, as he clung
with both hands and knees to an unusually slippery place, having lost
his stick in making a miscalculation when trying to brace himself.
One of the other fellows recovered the staff, and then Eben was assisted
across. Paul had been expecting something like this, and was not very
much surprised. He felt pretty sure there was another who would welcome
an order to stay there on that little patch of firm ground, and wait for
the return of the rest.
"Well, I was just thinking of leaving a rear guard, to protect our line
of communications," he proceeded to say, gravely, but with a wink toward
Seth and Fritz, "and as it will be necessary for two to fill the
position, I appoint Seth and Noodles to the honorable post. You will
take up your position here, and if anybody tries to pass you by without
giving the proper countersign, arrest him on the spot."
"Which spot, Paul?" asked Noodles, solemnly.
"Well, it doesn't matter, so long as you stay here and guard our line of
retreat. And boys, keep your eyes on the watch for signals. Perhaps we
may have to talk with you by smoke signs. So you can amuse yourselves by
picking up some wood, and getting ready to start a smoky fire, only
don't put a match to it unless we call you."
"All right, Paul," returned Eben, taking it all in deadly earnest,
although the other fellows were secretly chuckling among themselves.
"And then again, I've got my bully old bugle, in case I want to give you
a call. Don't worry about Noodles; I'll be here to look after him."
"The blind leading the blind," muttered Seth as he turned his face away.
"There, you see now," broke in Fritz, "if we only had my gun along, Eben
here could be a real sentry, and hold a feller up in the right way.
Watch this second slippery log here, boys. You c'n easy enough push
anybody into the slush if he gets gay, and refuses to give the
password."
Then he in turn also followed after Paul, leaving the bugler and Noodles
there, congratulating themselves that they could be doing their full
duty by the enterprise without taking any more desperate risks.
And then when the six scouts had gone about fifty feet Eben was heard
wildly shouting after them.
"Paul, O! Paul!" he was bellowing at the top of his voice.
"Well, what is it?" asked the scoutmaster.
"You forgot something," came the answer.
"What?"
"You didn't give us the password, you know; and how c'n we tell whether
any fellers has it right, when we don't even know."
Paul just turned and walked on, laughing to himself; and those who
followed in his footsteps were shaking with inward amusement. Either
Eben had taken the bait, and gorged the hook, or else he was having a
little fun with them, no one knew which.
However, all of them soon realized that Paul had done a clever thing
when he thus coaxed the two clumsy members of the patrol to drop out of
line, and allow those better fitted for coping with the difficulties of
the slippery path to go forward; because it steadily grew worse instead
of better, and neither Eben nor Noodles could have long continued.
Why, even Fritz began to feel timid about pursuing such a treacherous
course, and presently he sought information.
"Don't you think we must be nearly in the heart of the old bog, Paul?
Seems to me we've come a long ways, and when you think that we've got to
go back over the same nasty track again, perhaps carrying a wounded man,
whew! however we are going to do it, beats me."
Paul stopped long enough to give a tree a couple of quick upward and
downward strokes with that handy little tool of his, and then glance at
the resulting gash, as though he wanted to make sure that it could be
seen a decent distance off.
"Well, that's a pretty hard question to answer," he replied, slowly. "In
the first place, we don't know whether the man fell into the heart of
the Black Water, or over by the other side. Fact is, we haven't come on
anything up to now to settle the matter whether he fell at all."
"Great governor! that _would_ be a joke on us now, wouldn't it, if we
made our way all over this beastly place, when there wasn't any aeronaut
to help? We'd feel like a bunch of sillies, that's right!" burst out
Fritz.
"But we acted in good faith," Paul went on to say, positively. "We
weighed the matter, and arrived at the conclusion that he had fallen
somewhere in here; and we agreed, _all of us_, mind you, Fritz, that it
was our duty to make a hunt for Mr. Anderson. And we're here on the
ground, doing our level best."
"Ain't got another word to say, Paul," Fritz observed, hastily, "you
know best; only I sure hope it don't get any worse than we find it right
now. I never did like soft slimy mud. Nearly got smothered in it once,
when I was only a kid, and somehow it seems to give me the creeps every
time I duck my leg in. But go right along; only if you hear me sing out,
stop long enough to give me a pull."
"We're all bound to help each other, don't forget that, Fritz," said
Seth. "It might just as well be me that'll take a slide, and go squash
into that awful mess on the right, or on the left. Don't know whether to
swim, or wade, if that happens; but see there, you can't find any bottom
to the stuff."
He thrust his long Alpine staff into the mire as far as it could go; and
the other scouts shuddered when they saw that so far as appearances
went, the soft muck bed really had no bottom. Any one so unfortunate as
to fall in would surely gradually sink far over his head, unless he were
rescued in time, or else had the smartness to effect his own release by
seizing hold of a low-hanging branch and gradually drawing his limbs out
of the clinging stuff.
Then they all looked ahead, as though wondering what the prospect might
be for a continuance of this perilous trip which had broken up their
great hike.
"I guess it's about time to make another try with a shout or so, Fritz,"
said Paul, instead of giving the order for an advance.
"All right, just as you say," returned the other, "we've come quite some
distance since we made the last big noise; and if he's weak and wounded,
yet able to answer at all, p'raps we might hear him this time. Line up
here, fellers, and watch my hands now, so's all to break loose
together."
It was a tremendous volume of sound that welled forth, as Fritz waved
his hands upward after a fashion that every high school fellow
understood; why, Seth declared that it could have been heard a mile or
more away, and from that part of the swamp half way out in either
direction.
Then they strained their ears to listen for any possible answer. The
seconds began to creep past, and disappointment had already commenced to
grip hold of their hearts when they started, and looked quickly,
eagerly, at one another.
"Did you hear it?" asked Fritz, gasping for breath after his exertions
at holding on to that long-drawn school yell.
"We sure did--something!" replied Jotham, instantly, "but whether that
was the balloonist answering, Eben or Noodles calling out to us, or some
wild animal giving tongue, blest if I know."
And then, why, of course five pair of eyes were turned on Paul for the
answer.