“Is it me?” queried Mr. O’Toole, indignantly. “ ’Tis only used to it I am—there’s no need f’r you to wet y’r feet at all. Billy an’ I can fix it.”
Jim laughed.
“I might have known you wouldn’t be sensible,” he said. “Come on, then, you obstinate old Irishman!” He picked up a coil of rope and some sacking and marched off into the water, followed by his henchmen.
The big shorthorn seemed to understand that the new arrivals were bent on helping him, for he showed no sign of fear as they waded across, stumbling in the boggy mud and tripping over Murty’s unseen and uneven pavement of logs. To stand on logs hidden under water is never the easiest of pursuits—the log possessing an almost venomous power of tipping up; and when such action on the part of the log renders its victim exceedingly likely to be dogged by plumping him violently into mud, the excitement becomes a trifle wearing. Norah, left alone on dry land beside Nugget, who slumbered peacefully, was divided between mirth and anxiety. To the looker-on there was much that was undoubtedly comical.
“Scissors!” ejaculated Wally, making a mis-step and losing his balance altogether. A violent splash resounded as he struck the water, disappearing momentarily in a cloud of spray that half drenched his companions. Mr. Meadows arose like a drowned rat, amidst unfeeling laughter.
“Can’t you stand up, you old duffer?” queried Jim—and promptly lost the use of one leg, which sank so far into the yielding mud that it was all its owner could do to avoid sitting down in the water. Prompt action rescued him, amidst jeers from Wally.
“Of all the evil places for a stroll!” ejaculated Jim. “What on earth possessed you to come in here at all, you owl?” This to the bullock, who very naturally made no reply.
“Contrary they do be, by nature,” said Murty, picking his way from log to log. “You’d wonder, now, what he’d expect to be finding; and any fool could have towld it’d be boggy. Well, he has his own troubles coming, an’ serve him right.”
The bullock snorted uneasily when he found himself the centre of attraction: a matter brought home to him sharply by the fact that Jim slipped on a log near him, and fell against him with a violence that would have disturbed anything less firmly bogged.
“No good trying to move him by ourselves, I suppose, Murty?” queried Jim, recovering himself.