When they had pushed into the patch of cottonwoods they found that Ned was already at work trying to lend the assistance that had been so lustily called for in that childish treble.
A figure was in the stream, although just his head and a small portion of his body could be seen. He was stretching out his hands towards Ned in a beseeching manner that at first puzzled Jimmy.
“Why, I declare if it ain’t a little boy!” he exclaimed; “but what’s he doin’ out there, I want to know? Why don’t he come ashore if the water’s too deep. What ails the cub, d’ye think, Jack?”
“Don’t know—might be quicksand!” snapped the other, as he once more started to hurry forward.
Ned was talking with the stranger now, evidently assuring him that there was no further need of anxiety since they had reached the spot.
“Can’t you budge at all?” they heard him ask.
“Not a foot,” came the reply; “seems like I mout be jest glued down here for keeps and that’s a fact, stranger.”
“How long have you been caught there?” asked the scout master.
“Reckon as it mout be half hour er thereabouts,” the boy who was held fast in the iron grip of the treacherous quicksand told him; and so far as Jack could see he did not exhibit any startling signs of fright, for he was a boy of the plains and evidently used to running into trouble as well as perilous traps.
“But,” Jack broke in with, “you never shouted all that time, or we’d have heard you long before we did?”