Having thus put in operation the precise thing that Hugh had done for him five or six years before, Jack stood the two horses side by side and slowly led them forward. The strain on Donald was severe. The pull bowed him forward until his trunk was parallel with the sloping beach and then suddenly, with a mighty pluck, he was drawn from the mud and thrown heavily on the ground. Jack stopped the horses, and in a moment the ropes were loosened and Donald recovered his breath. His legs were uninjured, and Jack asked him how his chest felt.
"Whew! I feel as if a grizzly bear had been hugging me, and hugging me tight! Honestly, I thought I heard my ribs crack just before I was pulled out."
"Well, it's not very good fun. I had Hugh do that precise thing to me once, when I was a little fellow, and I thought I was going to pull to pieces."
"Do you mean to say that you ever did so foolish a trick as to walk into a mud hole like that?"
Jack laughed.
"In my case it was quicksand, but the effect was the same. My feet and legs from the knees downward were gripped fast and I couldn't get out. I really don't suppose I ever came as near dying as I did that day. It was just the accident of Hugh's coming into camp at the right moment, and seeing and hearing me, that got me out of it. I think on that trip I learned a couple of lessons about doing what I was told to that I have never forgotten, and my instruction came in the shape of two huge scares. Say, you seem to have shed your foot-gear in that mud."
"Yes," Donald replied. "If they had not let go, I would probably be there still, or at least a part of me. You might have succeeded in pulling the upper part of my body away, but my feet and legs would have been down there yet."
"Well," said Jack, "there's no hope of recovering anything from that mud. You'll have to get new shoes and spurs."
"Spurs I'll have to get, but I have shoes at the ranch."
It was two or three weeks after their elk hunt that the two boys, on being told that fresh meat was again needed, decided that they would go over to Willow Creek, twenty-five miles from home, where the Pick ranch had an old cabin, and camping there would try to kill three or four buck antelope. Donald was especially keen about that, for though in previous trips to the United States he had killed one or two antelope his experience with this curious and interesting animal was limited.