“There’s just this about it, Josh,” said Tom, gravely, “suppose after we arrived safely home from this splendid hike, the first thing we heard was that one or two of that crowd had been lost in the Great Bog up here, and it was feared they must have found a grave in the mud flats. How would we feel about it, knowing that we had had the chance given to us to stretch out a helping hand them, and had failed?”
Josh turned red in the face. Then he made a sudden gesture which meant he was ready to throw up his hands.
“Huh! guess you know best,” he replied, in a husky voice; “I didn’t think of it that way. I’d sure hate to have such a thing on my mind nights. Let’s start right away then.”
That was the way with Josh; when he had anything unpleasant to do he was always eager to get it accomplished. For that matter, however, there were others among the scouts who wished to be astir, for the words of the patrol leader had thrilled them.
“What if they have gotten lost in that awful mud bog, and right now are stuck fast there, whooping for help?” suggested Felix.
Billy Button and Horace looked white with the very thought. As usual George pretended to make light of the whole matter, though some of them fancied much of his disbelief was assumed, for George had a reputation to maintain.
“Oh! no danger of those Smart Alecks being caught so easy,” he told them; “they could slip through any sort of bog without getting stuck. Like as not we’ll only have our trouble for our pains.”
“You can stay here at the cabin if you like, George,” Tom told him.
That, however, was far from George’s mind; if the others meant “to make fools of themselves he guessed he could stand it too”; and when they started forth George had his place in the very van. Josh often said George’s “bark was worse than his bite.”
“Fortunately,” said the old naturalist, “the Great Bog isn’t more than a mile away from here, and as I’ve spent many a happy hour there observing the home life of the little creatures that live in its depths the ground is familiar to me.”