eces, and the birds were clustered
too thickly together to be easily missed. The three guns belched out
their deadly message almost together and a score of birds fell to the
ground. Again and again were the volleys repeated before the dazed
birds recovered their senses enough to take to their wings.

The hunters paused only long enough to pluck from the backs of the
fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a
stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island
where the same performance was repeated.

At first all three hunters stuck close together, but they soon
separated, each picking out for himself what seemed to be choice places
in the little wood. Yielding to the incessant firing the birds began
to desert their roosts in great flocks until at last but few lingered
on the barren limbs. Charley was about to call his companions together
and propose a return to camp when a sudden cry sent the blood tingling
through his veins. It was Walter's voice, and its tone was that of
fear and horror unutterable. Pausing a second to locate the direction
of the sound, Charley bounded away for it at the top of his speed. As
he passed a thick clump of trees the captain broke out from among them
and lumbered on in his wake.

"What's the trouble, Charley?" he panted.

"Something's happened to Walt," he shouted back, "something terrible,
too--just hear him calling."

The cries rose again with redoubled vigor, a world of dread in their
cadence.

The island was small, and in a few minutes Charley was close to the
scene of the cries with the captain right at his heels. Suddenly they
broke out of the underbrush into a small open space perhaps forty feet
across. Near the center of this place was Walter, waving his torch
frantically back and forth. He ceased his cries as their lights
flashed into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't come a step
further. I am sinking a foot a minute. The ground is rotten here. I
guess it's up to me to say good-bye, chums," he continued in a voice he
strove vainly to make steady. "You can't help me, and I'm sinking
deeper every minute."

"Cheer up, lad, we'll find a way," declared the old sailor, with a
hopefulness he was far from feeling, for he knew well, by hearsay, of
the terrible swamp quagmires that swiftly suck their victims down to a
horrible death in the foul mud.

Already Walter had sunk to his waist, and it was only a question of