and let's
help him out."

How Dick expected that he was going to help the donkey out he did not
say; but he began to pick his way from tuft to tuft, avoiding the soft
places, till he was within twenty feet of the nearly submerged animal,
and then he had to stop or share his fate.

"I say, Tom, I can't get any farther," he cried. "What shall we do?"

"I don't know."

"What a fellow you are!" was the angry reply. "You never do know. Old
Sol will be drowned if we don't look sharp. The bog is twenty feet deep
here."

"Can't he swim out?"

"Can't you swim out!" cried Dick. "What's the good of talking like
that? You couldn't swim if you were up to the neck in sand."

"But he isn't up to his neck in sand."

"But he's up to his neck in bog, and it's all the same."

"Ahoy! what's matter?" came from a couple of hundred yards away; and the
lads turned, to see that it was Hickathrift shouting, he and the others
having just succeeded in taking up the root to its destination.

"Ahoy! Bring the rope," shouted Dick.

"He-haw--haw--haw--haw!" shouted the Solemn one dismally, as if to
emphasise his young master's order.

"Why, how came he in there?" cried Hickathrift, trotting up with the
rope, but picking his way carefully, for the peat shook beneath his
feet.

"He went in himself," cried Dick. "Oh, do get him out before he sinks!
Make a noose, and let's throw it over his head."

"We shall pull his head right off if we do," said Hickathrift, but
busily making the noose the while.

"Oh, no, I don't believe you would!" cried Tom. "He has got an awfully
strong neck."

"It won't hurt him," said Dave, who came up slowly with the rest.

"Well, there's no getting it under him," said the wheelwright; "he'd
kick us to pieces if we tried."

"I'll try," said Dick eagerly.

"Nay, I weant let you," said Hickathrift. "I'll go my sen."

"It weant bear thee, neighbour," said John Warren warningly.

"Eh? wean't it? Well, I can but try, mun. Let's see."

The good-natured wheelwright went cautiously towards where Dick was
standing waiting for the rope; but at the third step he was up to his
middle and had to scramble out and back as fast as he could.

"I'm too heavy," he said; "but I'll try again. All right, I'm coming
soon!" he added as the donkey uttered another dismal bray.

But his efforts were vain. Each time he tried he sank in, and at last,
giving up to what was forced upon him as an impossibility, he c