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.