The mucky swamp was bad enough and, more than once, Bud thought himself hopelessly mired. But in the end, exhausted, his face and hands scratched with the weeds he had fallen against and his trousers and shoes a coat of clayey black mud, he fell over a boulder and tumbled out onto dry land.
What turned out to be as great a strain was the effort to make his way through the woods to Camp’s Mill. Bud was no coward, but there is something about a journey at midnight through an owly, twig-snapping wood that is apt to give any one the creeps. When the double darkness of the thick trees finally gave way to a more open gloom, and Bud knew the Camp home was somewhere just ahead, he broke into a dead run, a cold perspiration thick all over his body.
And, as he at last found the gate of Josh’s home and a deep-barking dog lunged at him, he was about ready to pronounce Madame Zecatacas’ ring a failure. But his troubles for the night were over. Josh’s father, responding to the watchdog’s bark, demanded to know what was wanted. In a few moments, Bud was taken in. It was hard to explain the situation, but Bud’s condition was almost explanation enough. In an hour, refreshed with milk, bread and butter and cold ham, the airship thief was put to sleep in the spare room.
[CHAPTER XII]
THE ROMNEY RING BRINGS NEWS.
“Hello, Josh. What time is it?” called Bud, sticking his head out of the window of the spare room. The sun was high in the sky, and Bud, just awake, had caught sight of his friend crossing the dooryard with a milk pail in his hand.
“Time the milkin’ was over,” answered Josh. “But I ain’t had hardly no time yet. I been over to see her, Bud. She’s a jim dandy.”
Bud, in Josh’s rough but freshly ironed night shirt, leaned further out of the window. His eyes were yet blinking, but the mention of “her” brought him to his full senses at once. He had slept late, worn with the exertion and strain of the night before, and Mr. Camp had not awakened him. The near-by mill was already groaning with its daily grist, and breakfast was undoubtedly over.
“She ain’t broke anywhere is she?” asked Bud eagerly.