“I think they must have sighted the beginning of the Great Bog,” replied Carl. “Do you suppose Mr. Henderson has brought that stout rope along with the idea that it may be needed to pull any one out of the mud?”
“Nothing else,” said Tom. “He knows all about this place, and from what he’s already told us I reckon it must be a terrible hole.”
“Especially in that one spot where he says the path is hidden under the ooze, and that if once you lose it you’re apt to get in deeper and deeper, until there’s danger of being sucked down over your head.”
“It’s a terrible thing to think of,” declared Tom; “worse even than being caught in a quicksand in a creek, as I once found myself.”
“How did you get out?” asked Carl. “I never heard you say anything about it before, Tom?”
“Oh! in my case it didn’t amount to much,” was the answer, “because I realized my danger by the time the sand was half way to my knees. I suppose if I’d tried to draw one foot out the other would have only gone down deeper, for that’s the way they keep sinking, you know.”
“But tell me how you escaped?” insisted Carl.
“I happened to know something about quicksands,” responded the other, modestly, “and as soon as I saw what a fix I was in I threw myself flat, so as to present as wide a surface as I could, and crawled and rolled until I got ashore. Of course I was soaked, but that meant very little compared with the prospect of being smothered there in that shallow creek.”
“But the chances are Tony and those other fellows know nothing at all about the best ways to escape from a sucking bog,” ventured Carl.
“Yes, and I can see that Mr. Henderson is really worried about it. He is straining his ears all the while, and I think he must be listening in hope of hearing calls for help.”