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.