the track.

More than once he was tempted to give the thing up, he felt so out of
breath and exhausted from the heat and his exertions combined. And at
such times the miserable bird would squat down on the ground, just as
if tempting him to further labor; so once more he would start in
pursuit.

The queerest part of the whole affair, as Larry himself realized later
on, was that in all this time he utterly forgot that he carried a gun
in which there were five more unused shells; and that a dozen times he
could have made use of the weapon to finish the flutterings of the
sorely stricken turkey.

Finally the desperate bird managed to flap across a swampy stretch, and
drop on the opposite patch of firm ground. Larry gave the nearest
approach to a cry of victory his depleted lungs would allow; for he saw
that the turkey had finally given up the ghost, and died!

But how was he to reach it? As far as he could see the same stretch of
quaking bog extended. In patches water even lay upon it; and the
balance was black mud.

He tried it here and there, finally striking a spot where it seemed to
hold up fairly well under his weight. And so, laying down the precious
gun, he started out, intending to pick his way carefully over the muck,
under the belief that if he looked he could see where the seeming ridge
lay just under the surface.

About the time he got half way across Larry began to have serious
doubts as to the wisdom of his course. He seemed to be sinking in
deeper all the while, so that he even grew alarmed. Standing still for
a minute to look around him, in order to ascertain whether there might
not yet be found a safe causeway over to the solid ground where his
wild turkey lay so temptingly, he was forced to the humiliating
conclusion that it was useless in his keeping on.

Tony, having been born and brought up in the swamps, might know just
how to go about the thing; but what could be expected of a new
beginner? He must go back, and give up all hopes of ever laying hands
on the first game that had ever fallen to his gun as a hunter. And
such noble game, too!

Why, Phil would never believe his story. He would have nothing to show
for it, not even so much as a feather.

To his horror, when he tried to turn around, he found that he could not
lift so much as a foot; and looking down he was startled to see that he
had, even while thinking the thing over, sunk in to his knees.

For the first time Larry b