in a quicksand in a creek, as I once found myself."

"How did you get out?" asked Carl. "I never heard you say anything
about it before, Tom?"

"Oh! in my case it didn't amount to much," was the answer, "because I
realized my danger by the time the sand was half way to my knees. I
suppose if I'd tried to draw one foot out the other would have only
gone down deeper, for that's the way they keep sinking, you know."

"But tell me how you escaped?" insisted Carl.

"I happened to know something about quicksands," responded the other,
modestly, "and as soon as I saw what a fix I was in I threw myself
flat, so as to present as wide a surface as I could, and crawled and
rolled until I got ashore. Of course I was soaked, but that meant very
little compared with the prospect of being smothered there in that
shallow creek."

"But the chances are Tony and those other fellows know nothing at all
about the best ways to escape from a sucking bog," ventured Carl.

"Yes, and I can see that Mr. Henderson is really worried about it. He
is straining his ears all the while, and I think he must be listening
in hope of hearing calls for help."

"But none of us have heard anything like that!" said the other.

"No, not a shout that I could mention," Tom admitted. "There are those
noisy crows keeping up a chatter in the tree-tops where they are
holding a caucus, and some scolding bluejays over here, but nothing
that sounds like a human cry."

"It looks bad, and makes me feel shivery," continued Carl.

"Oh! we mustn't let ourselves think that all of them could have been
caught," the patrol leader hastened to say, meaning to cheer his chum
up. "They may have been smarter than Mr. Henderson thinks, and managed
to get through the bog without getting stuck."

Perhaps Carl was comforted by these words on the part of his chum; but
nevertheless the anxious look did not leave his face.

They had by this time fully entered the bog. It was of a peculiar
formation, and not at all of a nature to cause alarm in the beginning.
Indeed it seemed as though any person with common sense could go
through on those crooked trails that ran this way and that.

The old naturalist had taken the lead at this point, and they could see
that he kept watching the trail in front of him. From time to time he
would speak, and the one who came just behind passed the word along, so
in turn every scout knew that positive marks betrayed the fact of
Tony's crowd having