"I guess we'll have to stay here like flies stuck on flypaper for the rest of our natural lives," said Nan resentfully.
"But suppose we should sink in still deeper?" wailed Sadie. "There isn't any solid bottom to this thing. We'll be k-killed!"
"Wait a minute!" in Jo's voice there was sudden hope. "There's a board over here. If I can only reach it——"
What she had not seen before, half hidden as it was among the heavy bushes, was a board about a foot wide and seven or eight feet long. From the appearance of it, it seemed to have once been a part of a boat—an old boat probably drifted upon the island and long since fallen to pieces.
"If you can only get it without falling in up to your neck," Nan said anxiously. "Do be careful, Jo."
"My dear, as Miss Tully says, 'to be careful under such circumstances is a practical impossibility.' Still——"
Reaching for the board, Jo slipped and almost fell. Nan and Sadie screamed and made an instinctive gesture toward her, only to flounder helplessly. The nightmare of it!
But Jo recovered herself and reached pluckily for the board again. This time she touched it and, with the tips of her fingers, drew it toward her.
"Jo, do you think it will bear your weight and not let you down into the mud again?"
"If it does we won't be any worse off than we are now," said Jo grimly. "Anyway, we've got to try something."