“Yes, that’s all right, Hugh,” explained Billy, making a grimace, “and I pounded my poor brains like everything trying to think of some way, for I hated the worst kind to play the baby act and call for help. But there wasn’t a single thing I could hatch up, seemed like. Tell me, what can be done in such a case? Oh! don’t mind me any, because I’m comfortable, and I know I’ll be yanked out of this right soon. How about it, Hugh?”
“Well, if the fellow who’s caught happens to be only in half-way to his knees,” explained the other, “the best thing for him to do is to throw himself flat and scramble for the firm ground in that way, no matter how much he soils his clothes; because then you see all his weight doesn’t come on a small point like his foot, and so he can crawl or roll to safety.”
“But if he’s in too deep for that?” asked Ralph.
“In that case it’s much more serious,” Hugh told them. “If he happens to have a rope along, he can make use of it by noosing some object, and then dragging himself out. If a tree is overhead, and he can get hold of a limb, the rest is easy. I’ve even read of a man who was in above his hips remembering that his horse was staked not far away. He whistled, and the animal, breaking loose, came running to him; then the lariat was fastened to the saddle, the loop put under the man’s arms, and the intelligent animal dragged him free.”
“Fine!” ejaculated Billy. “But I didn’t have a horse nor yet a rope, you see. There’s a tree above me, but no limb within five feet of my hands. I guess I’d have had a tough time of it only for the camp being so near by.”
“Well, now to get you out of that hole, Billy!” said Hugh, with a confidence so refreshing that Billy actually laughed gleefully.
First of all, Hugh climbed up in the tree and managed to reach the limb that was directly above the imperiled scout. Billy, by stretching his arm, was able to hand up his gun, which in turn Hugh passed along to the others close by.
“Now, I’m going to lower the rope, Billy,” the scout master continued. “It has a running noose at the end, you see. Slip that under your arms, with the knot across your chest. After that, when we start to pulling, do everything you can to work your feet free from the clinging quicksand.”
“That’s O. K., Hugh, and I can do it to a dot!” sang out the one below, as he took hold of the dangling rope the scout master had lowered.
Fortunately that same rope, a stout braided clothes-line or window-sash cord belonging to Hugh, was long enough to pass over the limb, and from there extend to solid ground.