Stuart and the Cuban, the boy riding ahead, were picking their away across this noisome tract of land.
For a few miles out of Cap Haitien, where the finger of American influence had reached, an air of decency and even of prosperity had begun to return. Near the town, the road had been repaired. Fields, long abandoned, showed signs of cultivation, anew.
Two hours' ride out, however, it became evident that the new power had not reached so far. The road had dwindled to a trail of ruts, which staggered hither and thither in an effort to escape the quagmires—which it did not escape. Twice, already, Stuart's horse had been mired and he had to get out of the saddle and half-crawl, half-wriggle on his belly, in the smothering and sucking mud. So far, Manuel had escaped, by the simple device of not passing over any spot which the boy had not tried first.
This caution was not to serve him long, however.
At some sight or sound unnoticed by the rider, Manuel's horse shied from off the narrow path of tussocks on which it was picking its way, and swerved directly into the morass.
The Cuban, unwilling to get into the mud, tried to urge the little horse to get out. Two or three desperate plunges only drove it down deeper and it slipped backward into the clawing mire.
Manuel threw himself from his horse, but he had waited almost too long, and the bog began to draw him down. He was forced to cry for help.
Stuart, turning in his saddle, saw what had happened. He jumped off his horse and ran to help the Cuban. The distance was too great for a hand-clasp. The ragged trousers which Stuart was wearing in his disguise as a Haitian lad were only held up by a piece of string; he had no belt which he could throw. There was no sapling growing near enough to make a stick.
Then there came into the boy's mind an incident in a Western story he had read.
Darting back to his horse, he unfastened the saddle girth, and, hurrying back to where Manuel was floundering in the mud, he threw the saddle outwards, holding the end of the girth. It was just long enough to reach. With the help of the flat surface given by the saddle and a gradual pulling of the girth by Stuart, the Cuban was at last able to crawl out.