Tom Slade's Double Dare

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

He could not advance one more step without danger. Yet he could not think of going back to camp, with nothing but the report of something he had seen from a distance. He had done nothing. Yet what could he do?

He was at a loss to know how Hervey could have advanced so far into that treacherous mire.

He must have picked his way here and there, knee deep, waist deep, like the reckless youngster he was, until he plunged all unaware into the fatal spot. The very thought of it made Gilbert shudder. Had he called for help? Gilbert wondered. How dreadful it must have been to call for help in those minutes of sinking, and to hear nothing but some mocking echo. What had the victim thought of, while going down—down?

Good scout that he was, Gilbert would not go back to camp without rescuing that one remaining proof of Hervey's tragic end. At least he would take back all that there was to take back.

He pulled out of his pocket a fishline wound on a stick. At the end of the line where a hook was, he fastened several more hooks an inch or two apart. The sinker was not heavy enough for his purpose so he fastened a stone to the end of the line.

As he made these preparations, the rather grewsome thought occurred to him of what he should do and how he would feel if Hervey's head were visible when he pulled the cap away. It caused him to hesitate, just for a few seconds, to make an effort to recover it. Suppose that hat were still on the smothered victim's head....

With his first throw, the stone landed short of the mark and he dragged back a mass of dripping marsh growth, caught by the fish-hooks. His second attempt landed the stone a yard or so beyond the hat and the treacherous character of the ground there was shown by the almost instant submergence of the missile. It was with difficulty that Gilbert dragged it out, and with every pull he feared the cord would snap. But as he pulled, the hat came also. The line was directly across it and the hooks caught it nicely. There was no vestige of any solid object where the cap had been. Gilbert wondered how deep the log had sunk, and the suit-case and—the other....

He shook the clinging mud and marsh growth from the hat and looked at it. He had seen Hervey only twice; once lying unconscious in the bus, and once that very day, when the young wanderer had started off to visit his friend, the farmer. But this cap very vividly and very pathetically suggested its owner. The holes in it were of every shape and size. The buttons besought the beholder to vote for suffrage, to buy liberty bonds, to join the Red Cross, to eat at Jim's Lunch Room, to use only Tylers' fresh cocoanut bars, to give a thought to Ireland. There was a Camp-fire Girls' badge, a Harding pin, a Cox pin, a Debs pin ... Hervey had been non-partisan with a vengeance.

With this cap, the one touching memento of the winner of the Gold Cross, Gilbert started sorrowfully back to camp. The dreadful manner of Hervey's death agitated him and weakened his nerve as the discovery of a body would not have done. There was no provision in the handbook for this kind of a discovery; no face to cover gently with his scout scarf, no arms to lay in seemly posture. One who had been, was not. His death and burial were one. Gilbert could not fit this horrible thought to his mind. It was out of all human experience. He could not rid himself of the ghastly thought of how far down those—those things—had gone.

Slowly he retraced his steps along the trail—thinking. He had read of hats being found floating in lakes, indubitable evidence of drowning, and he had known the owners of these hats to show up at the ends of the stories. But this....