"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.