No such promise was forthcoming.
“Well, I know what I’ll do!” Leon tore off his jacket. “I’ll tie the sleeves of my coat round the trunk of the tree; that will prevent his coming down, so I’ve heard my father say. Bother! they won’t meet. I’ll have to use your coat too, Nix!”
He snatched up the scout’s Norfolk jacket, thrown down beside the basket at the foot of the tree, and was knotting it to his own, when there was a wild shriek from Colin:—
“Look! Look! He’s jumped over into the other tree. Oh! he’s come down; he’s on the ground now—there beyond the ash tree—rolling over like a ball! Oh, he’s going—going like a slate sliding downhill!”
While Leon had been so cleverly knotting the coats round the tree-trunk, and his terrier barking up it, the young coon had outwitted them and dropped like an acrobat to the ground, having gained the odds of a dozen yards in his race for safety.
Off went the terrier after him, now! Off went the four boys, hot on the trail too, madly rushing down the hill clear to the edge of the alder-swamp toward which it sloped—yes! and into its quagmire borders too, while the crows, raving like a foghorn, supplied music for the chase.
But the speed of the limping wild animal enabled it, having gained its short legs—despite the injury of the stone—to reach the shelter of a quivering clump of alders where Blink worried in and out in vain, nose to the ground—sniffing and baffled.
“Oh, we’ve lost sight of him now! He’s given us the slip,” cried Colin, recklessly dashing for the alders.
Suddenly the air cracked with his cry that raved with terror like the crows: “Help! Help! I’m into it now—into it plunk—into Big Swamp! I’m sinking—s-sinking above my waist! Help! Help!”