“How is everything now, Carl?” asked a voice in his ear, and turning he found Tom’s smiling face close to his own.
“Oh! that terrible load seems to have fallen from my shoulders just as water does from the back of a duck!” Carl exclaimed, joyously, and the patrol leader saw that he was very happy.
“I’m so glad!” was all Tom said, but the way he grasped his chum’s hand counted for much more than mere words.
When they finally reached the end of the treacherous Great Bog there was a halt called by the naturalist.
“We must stop here and try to clean these boys off as best we can,” he announced.
This was no easy task, but by making use of slivers of wood from a fallen tree they finally managed to relieve Tony and his crowd of most of the black mud, although they would be apt to carry patches of it on their garments for some time after it dried.
“Now,” said the kindly old hermit-naturalist, “I’m going to invite all of you up to my cabin, and we’ll have a feast to-night in celebration of this rescue from the Great Bog. You four lads have had a narrow escape, and I only hope you’ll never forget what the scouts have done for you.”
Even Tony seemed affected, and certainly no one had ever before known him to show the first sign of contrition. He went straight up to Tom and looked him in the eye.
“We played your crowd a mighty low trick I want to say, Tom Chesney; and while we’ve et up most of the grub we took, here’s something you might be glad to get back again,” and with that he thrust into the hand of the patrol leader the little note-book which Tom had mourned as lost to him forever.
“I’m glad to have that again, Tony,” the other said, offering his hand to the contrite one; “because I mean to use my account of this hike later on in trying for a prize. It’s lucky you didn’t throw it away as you did the frying-pan and coffee-pot, which I see you failed to carry along with you.”