Why should Hagle take so much trouble to avoid a meeting? Sam puzzled over the problem even as he ran. He raised his voice and called, not loudly, to be sure—he lacked wind for a shout—but with sufficient strength to make sure that the hail reached Hagle’s ears. And Jack’s only response was a desperate spurt, which for a moment increased his lead.
Doubt of the other’s sanity seized Sam. Jack now was following a course which bade fair to carry him right into the heart of the conflagration. A second call produced even less effect than the first; for Hagle couldn’t spurt again. Sam began to close the gap between them. It was to be measured in feet rather than in yards; then it was a case of inches intervening between Sam’s outstretched hand and Jack’s shoulder. But the fire was very near now. The glare was all about them; the heat was becoming oppressive; the roar of the flames was in their ears.
“Stop! Stop!” Sam panted. “You—you crazy loon—what’s the matter with you?”
Hagle didn’t stop. Instead, he dodged. The movement saved him from Sam’s descending hand. He plunged blindly down a slope into one of the tiny, pocket-like valleys of the region, which at the moment chanced to be like a peninsula in a sea of fire; for the brush about it was ablaze on every side except that by which he entered.
Sam saw the danger, and was convinced that fear must have driven Hagle mad. He checked his pursuit; Jack was running straight into a trap. He called out, “Come back! Come back!” but Jack gave no heed. He appeared, though, to wake to the peril. At least, he changed course slightly, to avoid a miry pool which lay at the bottom of the depression.
It was as if Sam were looking into a cup, down the slope of which Hagle was slipping. He saw the boy stumble, recover balance, slide to the very edge of the pool; hesitate for a fraction of a second; begin to struggle wildly. There was an instant in which Sam failed to grasp the other’s predicament. Then he perceived that Hagle had been caught in the treacherous footing of the bog; that in spite of his frantic efforts to extricate himself he was sinking rapidly; that already he was mired to the knees.
Sam knew something of the very real peril of the case; quicksands were hardly more engulfing than some of these swampy spots; while the fire added immensely to the need of prompt and efficient aid.
He paused long enough for swift survey of the hollow, of the trees overhanging it, of the advancing flames. By his reckoning there was still time to rescue Hagle, though there was not a moment to waste. He caught a stout branch extending over the pool; clinging to it with one hand, he swung himself down the bank. The branch bent under his weight, but it was sound and of tough fibre. With its help he found that, keeping his feet on comparatively firm ground, he could lean toward the bog and grasp Jack’s collar.
“Steady, there! Keep your head. Try to work one leg free at a time, and we’ll wiggle out, somehow,” he encouraged.
Hagle yielded obedience. Whatever he might have feared from Sam was a trifle compared with his new, and wholly reasonable, fear of the bog and the fire. He did his best to carry out orders; of that there could be no question. But it was no slight task which was to be accomplished. Left to himself, Jack must steadily have sunk deeper in the ooze, and even with Sam’s assistance he could do little more at first than check the sinking. He caught desperately at roots and brush within reach. He floundered almost in the fashion of a novice treading water, now bringing a foot to the surface only to feel its mate becoming more deeply submerged. Sam tugged and pulled, now this way, now that, testing at once the resistance of Hagle’s weight, plus the pull of the bog, and the elasticity of the bough, which was his own dependence in the emergency.