Was it an actual voice calling for help that had answered her? Or had she imagined the cry?
She held in the anxious horse, and waited. Again the muffled shriek reached her ears. Somebody was caught in the quagmire—in the quicksand. It was off to the left, and not many yards from the path.
[CHAPTER XI—BOBBY IS INTERESTED]
Indeed, one could not have ventured many feet from the path at this season of the year, when the heavy Spring rains had filled the swamp, without sinking into the mire. Eve knew this very well, and it was with fast-beating heart that she slipped from her horse, tied the bridle-rein to a sapling, and ventured cautiously in the direction of the half-choked cries.
“I’m coming! Where are you?” she called.
The cry for help came for a third time. Eve parted the bushes before her, and then shrank back. She had been about to put her foot upon a bit of shaking moss which, when she disturbed the branches of the bush, sank completely out of sight in the black mire.
Another step might have proved her own undoing!
But on the other side of this dimpling pool of mire a willow tree of the “weeping” variety stood with its roots deep in the swamp. And clinging to a drooping branch of this tree were two sun-browned hands—muscular, but small.
“A woman!” gasped Eve. Then, the next moment, she added: “A girl!”
And a girl it was—a girl no older than herself. The victim was all but shoulder deep in the mire. She was clinging desperately to the branch of the tree. Her face was half hidden by the twigs and leaves, and by her own disarranged hair, which hung in black elf-locks about it.