rsh
in the recent rainy spell.

Gilbert had to proceed with caution. Once his leg sank to the knee in
the oozy undergrowth. He was just considering whether he had not better
abandon a trail which was indeed no longer a trail at all, and pick his
way around the pond, when he noticed something a little distance ahead
of him which caused him to pause and strain his eyes to see it better in
the gathering dusk. As he looked a cold shudder went through him. What
he saw was, perhaps, fifty feet off. A log was there, one end of which
was in the ground, the other end projecting at an angle. Its position
suggested the pictures of torpedoed liners going down, and there passed
through Gilbert's agitated mind, all in a flash, a vision of the great
_Lusitania_ sinking--slowly sinking.

For this great log was going down. Slowly, very slowly; but it was going
down. Or else Gilbert's eyes and the deepening shadows were playing a
strange trick....

He dragged his own foot out of the treacherous ground and looked about
for safer support. There was a suction as he dragged his foot up which
sent his heart to his mouth. "_Quicksand_," he muttered, shudderingly.

Was it too late? He backed cautiously out of the jaws of this horrible
monster of treachery and awful death, feeling his way with each
tentative, cautious step. He stood ankle deep, breathing more easily. He
was back at the edge of that oozy, clinging, all devouring trap. He
breathed easier.

He looked at the log. It was going down. It stood almost upright now,
and offering no resistance with its bulk, was sinking rapidly. In a
minute it looked like a stump. It shortened. Gilbert stood motionless
and watched it, fascinated. Instinctively he retreated a few feet, to
still more solid support. He was standing in ordinary mud now.

Down, down....

A long legged bird came swooping through the dusk across the pond, lit
upon the sinking trunk, and then was off again.

"Lucky it has wings," Gilbert said. There was no other way to safety.

Down, down, down--it was just a hubble. The oozy mass sucked it in,
closed over it. It was gone.

There was nothing but the dusk and the pond, and the discordant croaking
of frogs.

Then, close to where the log had been, Gilbert saw something else. It
was a little dab of yellow. It grew smaller; disappeared. There was
nothing to be seen now but a little spot of gray; probably some swamp
growth....

No....

Just then Gilbert saw upon it a t