"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."