ver yonder from all sorts of
quarters. D'ye know, I've sometimes had a notion I'd like to explore the
heart of that queer old swamp," and the young patrol leader cast a
thoughtful glance toward the quarter from whence that seemingly endless
stream of crows flowed continually.

"Hurrah! that's the ticket!" exclaimed Seth. "I've heard a heap about
that same spooky old place myself. They say nobody ever has been able to
get to the heart of it. And I heard one man, who traps quite a lot of
muskrats every winter, tell how he got lost in a part of the swamp
once, and spent a couple of pretty tough days and nights wandering
around, before he found his way out again. He said it'd take a heap to
tempt him to try and poke into the awful center of Black Water Swamps."

"But what's that to us, fellers?" ejaculated Fritz. "The boys of the
Beaver Patrol ain't the kind to get scared at such a little thing as a
swamp. Just because it's a tough proposition ought to make us want to
take up the game, and win out. We fairly eat hard jobs! And looking back
we have a right to feel a little proud of the record we've made, eh,
fellers?"

Of course every scout stood up a little straighter at these words, and
smiled with the consciousness that they had, as Fritz so aptly put it, a
right to feel satisfied with certain things that had happened in the
past, and from which they had emerged acknowledged victors.

"Just put a pin in that, to remember it, Paul, won't you?" said Andy.

"Why, sure I will, since a lot of you seem to think it worth while,"
replied the obliging scoutmaster, with a smile, "and if we haven't
anything ahead that seems to be more worth while, we might turn out here
later on, prepared to survey a trail right through the swamp. I admit
that I'm curious myself to see what lies hidden away in a place where,
up to now, no man has ever set a foot."

"Hurrah for the young explorers!" cried Eben, who seemed strangely
thrilled at the tempting prospect.

They say the boy is father to the man; and among a bunch of six or
eight lads it is almost a certainty that you will find one or two who
fairly yearn to grow up, and be second Livingstones, or Stanleys, or Dr.
Kanes. Eben had read many books concerning the amazing doings of these
pathfinders of civilisation, and doubtless even dreamed his boyish
dreams that some fine day he too might make the name of Newcomb famous
on the pages of history by discovering some hitherto unknown tribe