"Felt like a whale turned under my foot," he panted. "Let's get out of this so I can be sick—"
Foot by foot, they heaved and plunged their way through the relentless sucking mire.
"We must be nearly to the other side," Bradford wheezed. "We've got to make it before dark. It's a cinch we can't camp here."
Canham looked across the few hundred yards remaining and shook his head wearily.
"This thing is like a moat; I get the feeling that we're being kept out by one defense after another. Those harmless looking, poisonous little beasts that killed Palmer, the wind-devils that got Rodriguez and now—this."
Bradford repressed a shiver.
"Come on!" he said roughly. "Don't start telling your ghost stories here, for the love of heaven! Save them for your kids."
They plopped off the further side of the mound, their feet making gobbling noises as they lifted them one after the other in the tenacious, clinging mud. Bradford halted suddenly.
"There it is," he breathed. "You can see the shore from here...."
Caution forgotten, they plunged ahead, panting with effort. Canham gave a sudden startled cry.