Bridget ran about a little among the underbrush. “No, sir,” she called back; “there’s not a shadow of a rope nor a bit of a plank here.”
“Then, I’ll have to go in myself,” said the sergeant in a disgusted voice. “Eugene, can’t you walk out? Come this way. You can see me, can’t you?”
“Oh, the blessed saints presarve us!” cried Bridget, “that quare round thing is the head of the boy; and it’s mud he is—and there’s an arm sticking out—and now he’s almost gone.”
Little Virgie gave a shriek. Eugene was indeed sinking more deeply into the marsh that would soon close its lips over him if he should fall down. The sergeant made one brief exclamation, and snatching off his coat and his helmet threw them on the ground. Then he waded in to the spot where Eugene had been staggering about, and stretching out an arm he drew him out toward the dry ground.
Eugene was sinking more deeply into the Marsh.
“May I be forgiven for laughing,” said Bridget, clutching Virgie by the hand, and hurrying down the grassy bank, “but I nivver saw such a soight in my life—and sure the boy is brown from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. Mr. Officer, he hasn’t fainted, has he?”
“He’s half choked with the mud and the slime,” said the sergeant dryly. “Lend me your handkerchief, will you?”
He was bending over Eugene, whom he had laid on the ground. Rapidly and skilfully he wiped the boy’s face, and cleaned his head with leaves from a shrub near by.
“Take, please take my little hankerskniff,” gasped Virgie, extending a microscopic bit of cambric.