"Oh, yes!" he gasped. In an instant, as his feet struck a soft, giving mass, Dave knew he was in danger. Unconsciously he had landed in the center of an immense cistern--the storage receptacle for the frew-frew product.
He tried to reach its edge but was held fast. He struggled to release his limbs but was pulled back and dragged down.
Dave sank in five seconds to the neck. His chin went under. As he started to yell his mouth was submerged. With a last dip eyesight was shut out and Dave sank under the sticky mass entirely submerged.
CHAPTER V
DOCTOR BARRELL'S "ACCIDENT"
"Begorra!"
That was the first expressive word that Dave Fearless heard as he realized that he had been suddenly saved from death by suffocation.
His eyes, mouth, ears, and nostrils were oozing with the sticky stuff in which he had taken so dangerous a bath. The top of his head seemed coming off. Dave felt as if he had been scalped.
Dave was lying on the grass and Stoodles was working over him, digging and dabbling with a handkerchief to get the youth's eyes and mouth clear of the glutinous "frew-frew."
"Sorra a bit too soon was I," said Pat, as Dave blinked and groaned. "I've a lock of your hair for a keepsake, lad! I saw you go into that threacherous pit, I threw a plank across, I grasped your topknot. It was loike taking a drowned cat out of glue. Sit up, if you can't stand up. If you let that stuff harden once, you'll be stiff as a statoo."