Skippy was out of the coupé with Nickie jumping after him. They grasped hands instinctively, and broke through the thick brush running blindly, wildly, but running as they had never run before. Devlin’s terrible voice seemed to follow them everywhere for his shouts rang out time and again and they heard Frost scream several times.
Not once did they look back. They could hear the crackling brush and they thought that Frost must be somewhere in their wake. They thought no more about the man than that for they were too intent on their own preservation. They must not, at any cost, stop until Devlin’s funereal echoes were left far behind.
Darkness had almost overtaken them before they had the courage to sit down and rest on a fallen log. Muddy and scratched from head to foot, they would have presented a comical picture if it had not been for the piteous expression on their faces. Mosquitoes had already got in some of their work as the great red lumps on their hands and foreheads indicated.
“We gotta slap mud on thick, Nickie,” Skippy said wearily. “I read once about a kid what was lost in a swamp and he did that and saves his life. These blamed things can eat a feller up—you know it?”
“I feel like I’m ate up a’ready,” Nickie answered pathetically. “Kid, you think we gotta stay in this graveyard all night?”
“It’s night now an’ where are we? There’s no use stumblin’ ’round in the dark, is there? We might walk plunk into that bog an’ you heard yourself what Frost said about it. You don’t get out once you walk into some parts.”
“Wonder where Frost is, hah? I don’t remember when we stopped hearin’ him behind us. I s’pose we oughta stopped, but honest, kid, I felt like Devlin most had wings, his voice sounded so near all the time.”
“Frost knows this place better’n we do. Gee whiz, I wish he coulda kept up with us. But he didn’t, so we gotta make the best of it. I’m ’fraid to lie down in the mud, ain’t you, Nickie?”
“You said it, kid! The mosquitas’ll bite right through our pants. Guess we’ll have to be like the birds an’ roost in a tree all night, hah?”
“Yeah, I was thinkin’ that too. Gee, we won’t get much sleep—we can’t sleep, ’cause maybe we’ll fall out!” Skippy yawned with exhaustion. “We gotta take turns watchin’ each other.”