“Take hold of it,” she commanded. “Have you got it, Miss Elting?”
“Yes.”
“Give way loosely when I pull. I may be able to pull you out. Don’t resist at all.”
“It’s no use, Harriet!” announced the guardian, after several minutes of the hardest sort of work on Harriet’s part. “I am getting deeper in the mud with every move I make. You will have to think of something else.”
“Girls, stop your screaming for a moment,” called Harriet. “Tell me how you are? Are you sinking deeper into the mud or are you remaining about the same?”
“Whenever I make the slightest movement I sink in deeper. I’m keeping as still as possible,” answered Hazel.
“I’m in almotht up to my waitht,” cried Tommy. “I’m going to be buried alive. Oh, thave me!”
“As long as you are able to scream like that you are all right,” comforted Harriet. “When you stop yelling I shall begin to believe you are in real trouble.”
Harriet now set to work cutting down small saplings with her hatchet. These she threw out into the space between Miss Elting and the three girls. They were close together, which somewhat simplified the work. The Meadow-Brook girl knew that it would take a quantity of the small trees and limbs to support her weight, but it was the only course she knew of to follow. Fortunately for Harriet she was an athletic girl, possessing great strength for one of her age and build. Better still, she possessed a courage and will all her own. Then, too, Harriet Burrell was one of those doggedly determined persons who never know when they are worsted. Her mind was working even more rapidly than were her hands. She had succeeded in piling up enough stuff to form a slight support for the arms of her companions. She now explained her plan to them.
“I don’t think I shall be able to get you out of the morass without taking a long chance of getting in myself,” she began.