“Did they say what they’d do if she didn’t accept it,” asked Ned.
“No, but they intimate that she would regret it,” answered Jerry. “So we’ve got a week before us, anyhow.”
The motor boat chugged off. Cabbage Creek, whither the boys were bound, was a sluggish stream, flowing from the swamp into a river which ran near Cresville.
The creek was navigable, part of the way up, for fairly large boats. Then the channel shallowed until only canoes could be used. But now a rainy spell had poured more water than usual into the creek, and the motor boat could be taken up it almost to the land owned by Mrs. Hopkins.
“And we can put on boots and walk when we can’t go any farther in the boat,” spoke Jerry, looking at three pairs of hip-boots in a seat locker.
Talking of various subjects, but, in the main, of the matter at present in hand, the boys sailed up Cabbage Creek. The sluggish stream was deeper than they had anticipated, and they did not have to stop, and tie the boat, until they were within a few hundred feet of Mrs. Hopkins’s land.
The swamp was surely a dismal place. Tall, gaunt trees, most of them dead, reared their branchless trunks high above the black water. Rotted and decayed stumps, in all sorts of grotesque shapes, lay half submerged in muddy pools. Trailing vines were all about, and hummocks of wire grass, here and there, offered uncertain footing.
“The only thing valuable I see about this place,” remarked Ned, “would be a place to take moving pictures of something like ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ It looks enough like the Everglades to be part of Florida.”
“It sure does,” agreed Bob, as he threw a piece of canvas over the seat locker containing the lunch he had been thoughtful enough to bring along. “That’ll keep off the sun,” he said, in explanation to his chums, who looked questioningly at him.
“Yes, it sure is dismal,” agreed Ned.