And how dark it was now!
“Quick! Quick!” called Dorothy. “This may be a bog hole!”
“Team play! Team play!” shouted Tavia, and instantly every girl, whether leading or following, was making for the spot from which Amy’s cries came.
The girl was imbedded in the black, wet bog as if she had been cemented there!
Even Tavia had no suggestion to offer, but stood gazing in hopeless amazement.
Dorothy was running about, trying to find a firm footing from which to reach out to the imperilled girl.
Although it was September, the late afternoons were damp and chilly, and as the girls, almost feverish from the over-excitement, ran this way and that, in hope of finding some sort of board or plank to make a way to Amy, their shouts of fright and cries for help, rent the air, and turned the scene, so lately one of merriment, into terror and danger for everyone of them.
“Oh, it’s all my fault!” wailed Tavia. “I should not have risked it so near dark.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” replied Dorothy, “but this is the time to act. Come Tavia, we may get a fence rail. I see some old black stuff, like wood, over there,” and she did her best to hurry over the wet ground, that threatened to hold her fast at every step.
In the meantime the other girls were trying to get Amy out. Molly Richards was the oldest and strongest, and she ventured near the spring until the others called to her that she would presently be worse off than Amy. A pile of light travelling coats were tossed over to Amy and she kept herself from going deeper in the bog by making these fast to the brushwood near her.