“Well, I declare if he hasn’t fooled us to beat the band!” cried Bud. “Hey, Billy, what d’ye mean shouting that way, and giving us such a big scare? Better come ashore and get down on your knees to beg—— Why, look at him tugging away like everything, and the water up above his knees, too! Hugh, is he caught in the quicksand, do you think?”
“That’s about the size of it,” sang out Billy, with a wide grin, for now that his chums, and particularly Hugh Hardin, had reached the spot, his late fears had evidently subsided, and he only saw the comical side of his predicament.
“D’ye mean to say you can’t get a foot out?” asked Ralph Kenyon, as he and the other two came to a halt on the low shore.
“Well, that’s the trouble, you see,” explained Billy, composedly. “Now watch me lift my right foot, and you’ll see that the other sinks down several inches when I put all my weight on it.”
He thereupon proceeded to show them how it came about, much to the wonderment of Ralph and Bud.
“He’s caught as fast as if he was in a vise,” admitted the former; “and if he had to depend on himself, I guess Billy’d have a hot old time getting out of that fix.”
“What’s the good of having chums if you don’t make use of them?” demanded the one who was standing in the shallow stream, holding his Flobert rifle in one hand, and getting deeper in the mire every time he moved.
Ralph and Bud turned to the scout master.
“What’s the answer, Hugh?” asked the latter.
“That’s why I had you fetch the rope,” Hugh told him. “Somehow something seemed to give me an idea it might be either sucking mud or a quicksand. When a fellow is trapped in either one, and there’s no chance for help coming, he must set about saving himself by his quick wits.”