They went down to the little marsh, but though there was plenty of water, it all appeared thick and uninviting. Being scouts, the boys were very careful of what water they drank, and they looked suspiciously on the marsh pools.
'No drink nayther,' said the Raven; 'we'd better get a start on us for a country wheer there's things to be got.'
'Wait a bit, Chippy,' replied his comrade. 'I think I know a dodge to get round this, if we only had a spade to dig with. It's a trick my Uncle Jim put me up to. He often used it when he was travelling in Africa.'
Dick explained what was to be done, and the Raven nodded.
'If that's all there is to it,' remarked the latter, 'I'll soon find the spades.'
He returned to the camp, seized the tomahawk, and began to cut at one of the pieces chopped off the rails. In five minutes of deft hewing Chippy turned the broad, flat piece of timber into a rude wooden shovel. Dick seized it with a cry of admiration.
'Why, this will do first-rate, old chap,' he asid. 'The ground is pretty sure to be soft.'
'Go ahead, then,' said the Raven. 'I'll jine ye wi' another just now.'
Dick went down to the swamp, and chose a grassy spot about twenty feat from the largest pool. Here with his knife he cut away a patch of turf about a couple of feet across; then he went to work with his wooden spade on the soft earth below. In a short time Chippy joined him, and the two scouts had soon scraped a hole some thirty inches deep. From the sides of the hole water began to trickle in freely, and a muddy pool formed in the hollow. Dick now took the billy, and carefully baled the dirty water out. A fresh pool gathered, not so dirty as the first, but still far from clean. This, too, was baled out, and a third gathering also. Then the water came in clear and cool and sweet, and the scouts were able to drink freely.
Chippy was warm in his praise of this excellent dodge, when suddenly he stopped, caught up the wooden spade, and, with a single grunt of 'Brekfus ahoy!' was gone.