Bart and Ned advanced to do so, but, to their dismay they found that they were themselves sinking in. As they had approached on this side of the boiling spring on a previous occasion, much closer to the water than they now were, it was evident that there had been a shifting of the earth underneath the surface.
“We can’t come any closer, Stumpy,” announced Bart. “We’ll sink in ourselves.” He was about to go back.
“Don’t—don’t leave me!” begged the unfortunate lad, making another attempt to lift himself out of the slough. “Don’t go back on me, Bart!”
“We won’t. We were only trying to think of a way to get you out,” answered Bart, as he held Ned back from going too close.
“Here, this will do it,” cried Frank, running up at that moment with a long, tree branch. “Take hold of this, Stumpy, and we’ll haul you out.”
Standing where the ground was firm, Frank thrust forward the branch, Bart and Ned assisting their chum. Fenn grasped desperately at the other end, and his three companions braced themselves.
There was a straining, a long, steady pull and Fenn slowly began to emerge from the hole. Once he was started it was an easy matter to pull him out completely, and in a few seconds he was out of danger, and standing beside his chums on solid earth. But such a sight!
He was covered with mud almost from his head to his feet. It dripped from his clothes, and his hands were thick with it, while some had even splashed on his face. He had not been rescued more than a minute before there came a rumbling sound, and a spray of mud and water shot up into the air. The volcano was in eruption, and Fenn had been saved in the nick of time, for the place where he had been sucked down was right on the edge of the disturbance.
“How did it happen?” asked Frank.
“It was so quick I can’t tell,” answered the muddy lad. “All I know is that I went down and seemed to keep on going.”