All of the scouts surveyed the scene with lively anticipations. They could easily understand that the immediate future might throw all manner of strange adventures across their path, and, like most boys, Elmer and his chums were ever hungry for exciting things to happen—it was in the blood.
But, then, at first the borders of the big Sassafras Swamp did not look so very forbidding. Elmer warned them not to expect that this condition of affairs would last long.
"You remember what Johnny told us," he remarked so that all of them could hear his words; "it keeps getting worse the further you go in. Things are easy to begin with, but after a while we'll have our hands full. Above all things we must keep our heads about us, for if we do that we'll escape getting lost."
"Then Johnny did admit a fellow could get lost in this place, did he?" inquired Landy, uneasily.
"He used to lose his way often when he first started coming in here after muskrats," confessed Elmer; "and then he began to have some system about his excursions so that by degrees he got it all down pat."
"Yes, Johnny said he believed he could pole a boat pretty much into the heart of Sassafras with his eyes shut or bandaged," remarked Lil Artha.
"Too bad he couldn't get off and be along with us," lamented Landy; "and Elmer, if we'd only promised Farmer Trotter five dollars a day he'd have let his help join us, I'm sure of that."
"Huh! too bad you didn't think of that before, Landy, and put it up to Elmer," jeered Lil Artha; "but I wouldn't bother too much about it if I was you. Chances are we won't get lost much; and by the same token, even if we do it'll be some kind of a sensation to wake us up."
Landy scratched his head, but not knowing how much of this was intended by his tormentor he did not reply. As they were gradually working further into the dense growth by now there was enough around them to chain their attention and arouse their interest.
In some places they could see that the shore stood above the sluggish water, although covered for the most part with dense shrubbery that would be difficult to pass through. Channels began to be met with running to the right and left, so that it behooved Elmer to remember the explicit directions given by the muskrat trapper if he wished to avoid getting side-tracked in the start.