CHAPTER XXVII

WOES OF A NATURALIST

Sid Henderson was of a very hopeful disposition, otherwise he never would have undertaken to get a picture of that fox after it had once been alarmed. But he fancied he could trail it to its burrow, and he wanted very much to get a photograph of the animal in its home surroundings.

So, unmindful of the desertion of his chums, he plunged on into the swamp. The footing became more and more treacherous as he advanced, and he had to go slowly, looking here and there for grass hummocks to support him. His camera, too, was a handicap.

"But I'm going to get that fox!" he exclaimed. "I just need a picture like that. Besides, I may find in this swamp some material I can use in my biological experiments."

On he went, leaping from hummock to hummock. Once he nearly slipped and barely saved himself from falling into a slough of black water.

"I wonder how deep that is?" he remarked, and taking a dead branch he thrust it straight down. He found that the hole was deeper than he had anticipated.

Keeping a sharp lookout for the animal he was after, he was at length rewarded by a sight of it slinking along through the bushes. He started forward eagerly, so eagerly, in fact, that he did not pick his steps. A moment later he slipped from a grass hummock and went into the muddy bog, up to his waist.

"Wow! Whoop! Help! Here, fellows! Come here and help me! Bring a fence rail!" he called, for he felt himself sinking down deeper and deeper.

Tom and Phil heard his cries, but thought he was only calling to them to come and see some natural curiosity or view the fox, so they did not respond. Sid called again and again, but got no answer. Then he tried to scramble from the bog, and found it hard work, for he had to hold his camera high up that it might not get wet.

At last he managed to free his legs from the sticky mud and reached a comparatively firm place. But what a plight he was in! Plastered with swamp-ooze to his waist, he looked like some sewer laborer. Though he did not know it, his face was spotted with globules of mud, splashed up in his struggles to get from the bog.

"Well, I certainly am in bad," he remarked to himself. "Lucky I put on old clothes. I can't get much worse, that's one satisfaction. I might as well keep on. Maybe I can get that fox now."

So he continued through the swamp. His speed was better, for he no longer paused to pick his steps, but splashed on, careless of the mud and water. The fever of the chase was in his veins, and another glimpse of the fox convinced him that the animal was heading for its burrow. At last, after a tramp of a mile, Sid was successful, and, in the fast fading light of the fall day, he snapped the creature, just as it was entering the hole, when it turned for a final look at its tireless pursuer.

"Well, it was worth it all," sighed the naturalist as he closed up his camera and started for home. "Now I wonder where Phil and Tom are."

Remembering that they had called to him that they would wait out on the road, he took that highway back to college. On the way he found several specimens which he needed in his evolution work, and in thinking about them, and his success in photographing the fox, he forgot about the plight he was in. He did not meet his chums, of course, and it was dusk when he got back to college. The mud had dried somewhat on his trousers and shoes, and, incidentally, on his face and hands, for he had, unconsciously, run his hands over his countenance once or twice, so that the mud globules had increased in surface area.

It was a very strange and somewhat disreputable figure that entered the west dormitory a little later and started up the stairs, but Sid did not know that, having no looking glass at hand.

Now it so happened that Professor Tines was just leaving the dormitory. He had called to see one of his pupils who was ill--a "greasy dig" student--to use the college vernacular to designate a lad who burned midnight oil over his studies. The professor having finished his call came upon Sid in the corridor. The instructor saw before him a young man, mud covered, carrying a square, black box, and the countenance, spotted with specimens of swamp muck, was unfamiliar to him. Professor Tines at once suspected a student trick.

"Here! Where are you going?" he cried, blocking the way of Sid.

"To my room," answered the luckless naturalist, who, of course, not appreciating that he was most effectually disguised, thought that the Latin teacher had recognized him.

"Your room! What do you mean by such nonsense? What student put you up to this joke? Tell me, and I will have him punished at once. How dare you come in here?"

"Why, I--I belong here, Professor Tines," said Sid.

"Belong here? You work on the coal trestle! Don't tell me! You are covered with coal dust now! What have you there? Are you going to play some trick at the instigation of the freshmen? I demand an answer!"

"I'm Henderson," went on Sid desperately. "I room here--with Phil Clinton and Tom Parsons."

"How dare you trifle with me in this fashion?" demanded the irate Latin instructor. "I shall call the proctor and have you arrested!" and he was so much in earnest that Sid, beginning to appreciate the state he was in, determined to prove absolutely that he was himself.

"Professor Tines," he said, "you can knock on that door there, and ask Clinton and Parsons if I'm not Henderson. I've been out after a fox, and I fell in the bog."

"Ha!" cried the professor. "I see it now. You are trying to play a joke on me, with the aid of Clinton and Parsons. But you shall all three suffer for it! I _will_ knock on that door. I _will_ confront your fellow conspirators with the evidence of their silly act. Come here," and he placed his hand on Phil's shoulder and led him toward the room of the three chums. "You shall not trifle with me!" he added fiercely.

Holding Sid firmly by the shoulder with one hand, Professor Tines with the other knocked loudly at the portal. Phil and Tom were within, and the latter quickly opened the door, for the summons was imperative. The two chums in the room started back at the sight of the instructor having in custody the mud-covered figure.

"Young gentlemen," began the professor sternly, "this--this person asserts that he is Henderson, and that he rooms here. I caught him in the corridor, and at once detected the joke he was about to play. He appealed to me to bring him here for identification. Have you three conspired to play a trick on me? Is this Henderson or is it not?"

Tom and Phil stared at the disreputable figure. They knew at once that it was their chum, but the spirit of mischief entered into Tom. He nudged Phil, and then answered promptly:

"Certainly not, Professor Tines. We don't know the person!"

Then he shut the door, while, with a cry of rage at the desertion of his friends, Sid tried to break away from the Latin teacher.