CHAPTER XXIII
INTO THE BIG BOG
"Is it worth our while to bother with that crowd, Tom?" asked Josh,with a look approaching disgust on his face.
One lad waited to hear what reply the patrol leader would make withmore or less eagerness, as his face indicated. Needless to say this wasCarl Oskamp, who had so much at stake in the matter.
"There's just this about it, Josh," said Tom, gravely, "suppose afterwe arrived safely home from this splendid hike, the first thing weheard was that one or two of that crowd had been lost in the Great Bogup here, and it was feared they must have found a grave in the mudflats. How would we feel about it, knowing that we had had the chancegiven to us to stretch out a helping hand them, and had failed?"
Josh turned red in the face. Then he made a sudden gesture which meanthe was ready to throw up his hands.
"Huh! guess you know best," he replied, in a husky voice; "I didn'tthink of it that way. I'd sure hate to have such a thing on my mindnights. Let's start right away then."
That was the way with Josh; when he had anything unpleasant to do hewas always eager to get it accomplished. For that matter, however,there were others among the scouts who wished to be astir, for thewords of the patrol leader had thrilled them.
"What if they have gotten lost in that awful mud bog, and right now arestuck fast there, whooping for help?" suggested Felix.
Billy Button and Horace looked white with the very thought. As usualGeorge pretended to make light of the whole matter, though some of themfancied much of his disbelief was assumed, for George had a reputationto maintain.
"Oh! no danger of those Smart Alecks being caught so easy," he toldthem; "they could slip through any sort of bog without getting stuck.Like as not we'll only have our trouble for our pains."
"You can stay here at the cabin if you like, George," Tom told him.
That, however, was far from George's mind; if the others meant "to makefools of themselves he guessed he could stand it too"; and when theystarted forth George had his place in the very van. Josh often saidGeorge's "bark was worse than his bite."
"Fortunately," said the old naturalist, "the Great Bog isn't more thana mile away from here, and as I've spent many a happy hour thereobserving the home life of the little creatures that live in its depthsthe ground is familiar to me."
"But you still limp, I notice, sir," remarked Tom; "are you sure youcan make it to-day? Hadn't we better try it alone?"
"I wouldn't think of letting you," replied the other, hastily. "I shallget along fairly well, never fear. This limp has become more a habitwith me than anything else, I must admit. But if you are ready let usstart off."
Accordingly the entire party began to head in the direction taken bythose four boys from Lenox. Rob and Josh were keeping a close watch,and from time to time announced that those they were following hadactually come along that same trail, for they could see theirfootprints.
"You know we took note of the different prints made by their shoes,"Rob told some of the other boys when they expressed surprise that thisshould be possible, "and it's easy enough to tell them every once in awhile."
"They are really following my usual trail, which I always take whengoing to or returning from a trip," explained the hermit-naturalist,looking pleased at this manifestation of scout sagacity on the part ofthe trackers.
Tom was keeping alongside his chum Carl, instead of being with thosewho led the procession. He had a reason for this, too; since he hadseen that the other was again showing signs of nervousness.
"Tom," said Carl in a low voice as they walked steadily onward, "do youthink I may have a chance to see Dock face to face, so I can ask himagain to tell me what he ever did with that paper he took?"
"While of course I can't say positively," was Tom's steady answer, "Iseem to feel that something's going to happen that will make youhappier than you've been this many a long day, Carl."
"Oh! I hope you're on the right track!" exclaimed Carl, drawing a longbreath, as he clutched the arm of his faithful chum. "It would meaneverything to me if only I could go home knowing I was to get thatpaper. Just think what a fine present it would be to my mother, worriedhalf to death as she is right now over the future."
"Well, keep hoping for the best, and it's all going to come out well.But what's that the boys are saying?"
"I think they must have sighted the beginning of the Great Bog,"replied Carl. "Do you suppose Mr. Henderson has brought that stoutrope along with the idea that it may be needed to pull any one out ofthe mud?"
"Nothing else," said Tom. "He knows all about this place, and from whathe's already told us I reckon it must be a terrible hole."
"Especially in that one spot where he says the path is hidden under theooze, and that if once you lose it you're apt to get in deeper anddeeper, until there's danger of being sucked down over your head."
"It's a terrible thing to think of," declared Tom; "worse even thanbeing caught in a quicksand in a creek, as I once found myself."
"How did you get out?" asked Carl. "I never heard you say anythingabout it before, Tom?"
"Oh! in my case it didn't amount to much," was the answer, "because Irealized my danger by the time the sand was half way to my knees. Isuppose if I'd tried to draw one foot out the other would have onlygone down deeper, for that's the way they keep sinking, you know."
"But tell me how you escaped?" insisted Carl.
"I happened to know something about quicksands," responded the other,modestly, "and as soon as I saw what a fix I was in I threw myselfflat, so as to present as wide a surface as I could, and crawled androlled until I got ashore. Of course I was soaked, but that meant verylittle compared with the prospect of being smothered there in thatshallow creek."
"But the chances are Tony and those other fellows know nothing at allabout the best ways to escape from a sucking bog," ventured Carl.
"Yes, and I can see that Mr. Henderson is really worried about it. Heis straining his ears all the while, and I think he must be listeningin hope of hearing calls for help."
"But none of us have heard anything like that!" said the other.
"No, not a shout that I could mention," Tom admitted. "There are thosenoisy crows keeping up a chatter in the tree-tops where they areholding a caucus, and some scolding bluejays over here, but nothingthat sounds like a human cry."
"It looks bad, and makes me feel shivery," continued Carl.
"Oh! we mustn't let ourselves think that all of them could have beencaught," the patrol leader hastened to say, meaning to cheer his chumup. "They may have been smarter than Mr. Henderson thinks, and managedto get through the bog without getting stuck."
Perhaps Carl was comforted by these words on the part of his chum; butnevertheless the anxious look did not leave his face.
They had by this time fully entered the bog. It was of a peculiarformation, and not at all of a nature to cause alarm in the beginning.Indeed it seemed as though any person with common sense could gothrough on those crooked trails that ran this way and that.
The old naturalist had taken the lead at this point, and they could seethat he kept watching the trail in front of him. From time to time hewould speak, and the one who came just behind passed the word along, soin turn every scout knew that positive marks betrayed the fact ofTony's crowd having really come that way.
By slow degrees the nature of the bog changed. One might not noticethat his surroundings had become less promising, and that the surfaceof the ooze, green though it was, would prove a delusion and a snare ifstepped on, allowing the foot to sink many inches in the sticky mass.
In numerous places they could see where the boys ahead of them hadmissed the trail, though always managing to regain the more solidground.
"It's getting a whole lot spooky in here, let me tell you!" admittedFelix, after they had been progressing for some time.
"But it's entirely different from a real swamp, you see," remarkedJosh; "I've been in a big one and I know."
"How a
bout that, Josh; wouldn't you call a bog a swamp, too?" askedGeorge.
"Not much I wouldn't," was the reply. "A swamp is always where thereare dense trees, hanging vines and water. It's a terribly gloomy placeeven in the middle of the day, and you're apt to run across snakes, andall sorts of things like that."
"Well, we haven't seen a single snake so far," admitted Horace. "I'mglad, too, because I never did like the things. This isn't so verygloomy, when you come to look around you, but I'd call it justdesolate, and let it go at that."
"Black mud everywhere, though it's nearly always covered with adeceptive green scum," remarked Josh, "with here and there puddles ofwater where the frogs live and squawk the live-long day."
"I wonder how deep that mud is anyhow?" speculated George.
"Suppose you get a pole and try while we're resting here," suggestedJosh, with a wink at the scout next to him.
George thereupon looked around, and seeing a pole which Mr. Hendersonmay have placed there at some previous time he started to push it intothe bog.
"What d'ye think of that, fellows?" he exclaimed, in dismay when he hadrammed the seven foot pole down until three fourths of its length hadvanished in the unfathomable depths of soft muck.
"Why, seems as if there wasn't any bottom at all to the thing," saidFelix.
"Of course there is a bottom," remarked the naturalist, who had beenwatching the boys curiously; "but in some places I've been unable toreach it with the longest pole I could manage."
"Have we passed that dangerous place you were telling us about, sir?"asked Mr. Witherspoon.
"No, it is still some little distance ahead," came the reply.
"If it's much worse than right here I wouldn't give five cents fortheir chances," declared George.
"Hark!" exclaimed Tom just then.
"What did you hear?" cried Carl.
"It sounded like voices to me, though some distance off, and comingfrom further along the trail," the patrol leader asserted.
"They may be stuck in the mire and trying every way they can to getout," observed the naturalist. "Let us give them a shout, boys. Now,all together!"
As they all joined in, the volume of sound must have been heard a mileaway. Hardly had the echoes died out than from beyond came loud calls,and plainly they heard the words "Help, help! Oh! come quick, somebody!Help!"
Boy Scouts of Lenox; Or, The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain Page 24