ast. Just as the scout made his
discovery he sank up to his knees in the mass.

"By Jove! I must get back out of this, and in double-quick order," he
muttered, and tried to turn, to find himself sinking up to his waist.

Pawnee Brown was now fully alive to the grave peril of his situation.

He tried by all the strength at his command to pull himself to the firm
ground from which he had started.

He could not budge a foot. True, he took one step, but it was only to
sink in deeper than ever.

Several minutes of great anxiety passed. He had sunk very nearly up to
his armpits.

Quarter of an hour more and he would be up to his head, and then----?
Brave as he was, the great scout did not dare to think further. The idea
of a death in the treacherous quicksand was truly horrible.

His friends would wonder what had become of him, but it was not likely
that they would ever find his body.

And even faithful Bonnie Bird would be dumb, so far as telling the
particulars of her master's disappearance was concerned.

The mare now stood upon the edge of the quicksands, fifteen feet off,
whining anxiously. She knew as well as though she had been a human being
that something was wrong.

Suddenly an inspiration came to Pawnee Brown.

"How foolish! Why didn't I think of that before?" he muttered.

At his belt had hung a lariat, placed there when the wagon train
started, in case any of the animals should attempt to run off in the
darkness.

The boomer could use a lariat as well as Clemmer or any of the cowboys.
More than once, riding at full speed upon his mare, he had thrown the
noose around any foot of a steer that was selected by those looking on.

He put his hand down to his waist and felt for the lariat. It was still
there, and he brought it up and swung it over his head, to free it from
the quicksand.

As has been stated, the belt of timber was not far away, the nearest
tree being less than fifty feet from where he remained stuck.

Preparing the lariat, he threw the noose up and away from him. It
circled through the air and fell over the nearest branch of the tree.
Hauling it taut, Pawnee Brown tested it, to make sure it would not slip,
and then began to haul himself up, as Rasco had done at the swamp hole.

It was slow work, and more than once he felt that the lariat would
break, so great was the strain put upon it.

But it held, and a few minutes later Pawnee Brown found himself with
somewhat cut hands, safe in