The pursuit was instantly given over, for all the boys bore Will too much love to neglect him. One and all, the four ran back to the scene of their late exploits, and Herriman escaped.
“Who saw Will last?” George asked anxiously.
“The last I saw of him,” said Steve, “was when you told him to bring the paddles.”
In fact, poor Will was so startled at Bob’s appalling cry that he had tumbled backwards into the pit. He and his paddles. In the confusion that ensued he was not missed, but was left to his own resources while the others were engaged in “rescuing” and dealing with Rob.
Unhappy boy, he found himself in narrow quarters. The hole was large at the top, but small at the bottom, and he was unable to climb out of it. Soon he found himself sinking into the horrible, sickening mire, which gave way beneath him.
He heard the shouts of his companions, and struggled manfully to save himself—and his paddles.
Why didn’t he cry out for help immediately? That is very easily explained.
Will got into trouble so often and made so many egregious blunders—which invariably provoked the laughter of others—that he had fallen into the habit of keeping as many of them secret as possible. He had a preternatural horror of being made a laughing-stock, and consequently, when he found himself out of sight in a pit, he was desirous to work his way out of it before he should be missed.
Besides, after his exploits in the cave, this experiment of the Sages was but ignoble pastime, and it would ill become him, the hero who had delivered and cured his insane uncle, to come to grief in this slimy hole.
He struggled heroically to gain dry land, but the more he struggled the deeper he sank in the mire. At last, hearing his comrades chasing some one, he concluded that he should have to cry out for help, or else be left to a horrible fate.