CHAPTER VII.

THE FROG HUNTER TRAPPED.

As usual Hugh was quick to do his thinking.

“One of you pick up that rope!” he called out. “Bud, you and Ralph come along with me.”

He jumped over to a tent, and when he appeared again, they noticed that he was carrying the medicine case with him.

“A rope!” exclaimed the bewildered Harold. “Then Hugh thinks Billy’s fallen down into some hole! But we didn’t run across anything like that, did we, Arthur?”

“Leave it to Hugh; he knows what he’s doing,” replied the other scout. “That rope may be for something else.”

“Yes,” added Harold, “I know they use ropes for a good many purposes in different parts of the country; but Billy doesn’t really deserve being lynched, even if he has gotten off some tough stories on us.”

Meanwhile Hugh, Bud and Ralph were running as fast as they could in the direction of the spot from whence those faint shouts came at intervals. The further the three scouts advanced, the plainer the cries sounded.

“Give him a whoop in return, Ralph, just to let him know we are on the way,” suggested the scout master, knowing the carrying power of the other’s voice.

So Ralph let out a call that might have been heard a mile away. Doubtless it afforded more or less satisfaction to the unseen Billy; for while he continued to give an occasional whoop, the frantic appeal was missing from his outcries.

“He’s only shouting now to let us know where he is,” Hugh explained.

“What in the dickens do you think has happened to him, Hugh?” asked Ralph. “Billy isn’t silly enough to get lost, or to shout like a baby if he did find himself mixed up. I wonder if he’s had an accident, and shot himself with that little Flobert gun?”

“Or been caught by a lot of the strikers, who think he must be a soldier because he’s wearing a uniform?” Bud added as his contribution.

“We’ll soon know,” Hugh told them, “because we’re getting close to where he is. If it was the strikers, they wouldn’t be apt to let him yell that way; I’m inclined to think it’s some sort of pickle Billy’s allowed himself to get into; which is mainly why I had you fetch the rope along.”

The other scouts might have demanded what he meant only it happened that just then they came upon the creek.

“Now we’ll find him, for he’s right above here!” exclaimed Ralph, after which he gave utterance to one of his “hallo” calls. An immediate reply from nearby caused the three boys to quicken their steps; and half a minute afterward they burst past a screen of bushes to discover the object of their concern.

“Well, I declare if he hasn’t fooled us to beat the band!” cried Bud. “Hey, Billy, what d’ye mean shouting that way, and giving us such a big scare? Better come ashore and get down on your knees to beg—— Why, look at him tugging away like everything, and the water up above his knees, too! Hugh, is he caught in the quicksand, do you think?”

“That’s about the size of it,” sang out Billy, with a wide grin, for now that his chums, and particularly Hugh Hardin, had reached the spot, his late fears had evidently subsided, and he only saw the comical side of his predicament.

“D’ye mean to say you can’t get a foot out?” asked Ralph Kenyon, as he and the other two came to a halt on the low shore.

“Well, that’s the trouble, you see,” explained Billy, composedly. “Now watch me lift my right foot, and you’ll see that the other sinks down several inches when I put all my weight on it.”

He thereupon proceeded to show them how it came about, much to the wonderment of Ralph and Bud.

“He’s caught as fast as if he was in a vise,” admitted the former; “and if he had to depend on himself, I guess Billy’d have a hot old time getting out of that fix.”

“What’s the good of having chums if you don’t make use of them?” demanded the one who was standing in the shallow stream, holding his Flobert rifle in one hand, and getting deeper in the mire every time he moved.

Ralph and Bud turned to the scout master.

“What’s the answer, Hugh?” asked the latter.

“That’s why I had you fetch the rope,” Hugh told him. “Somehow something seemed to give me an idea it might be either sucking mud or a quicksand. When a fellow is trapped in either one, and there’s no chance for help coming, he must set about saving himself by his quick wits.”

“Yes, that’s all right, Hugh,” explained Billy, making a grimace, “and I pounded my poor brains like everything trying to think of some way, for I hated the worst kind to play the baby act and call for help. But there wasn’t a single thing I could hatch up, seemed like. Tell me, what can be done in such a case? Oh! don’t mind me any, because I’m comfortable, and I know I’ll be yanked out of this right soon. How about it, Hugh?”

“Well, if the fellow who’s caught happens to be only in half-way to his knees,” explained the other, “the best thing for him to do is to throw himself flat and scramble for the firm ground in that way, no matter how much he soils his clothes; because then you see all his weight doesn’t come on a small point like his foot, and so he can crawl or roll to safety.”

“But if he’s in too deep for that?” asked Ralph.

“In that case it’s much more serious,” Hugh told them. “If he happens to have a rope along, he can make use of it by noosing some object, and then dragging himself out. If a tree is overhead, and he can get hold of a limb, the rest is easy. I’ve even read of a man who was in above his hips remembering that his horse was staked not far away. He whistled, and the animal, breaking loose, came running to him; then the lariat was fastened to the saddle, the loop put under the man’s arms, and the intelligent animal dragged him free.”

“Fine!” ejaculated Billy. “But I didn’t have a horse nor yet a rope, you see. There’s a tree above me, but no limb within five feet of my hands. I guess I’d have had a tough time of it only for the camp being so near by.”

“Well, now to get you out of that hole, Billy!” said Hugh, with a confidence so refreshing that Billy actually laughed gleefully.

First of all, Hugh climbed up in the tree and managed to reach the limb that was directly above the imperiled scout. Billy, by stretching his arm, was able to hand up his gun, which in turn Hugh passed along to the others close by.

“Now, I’m going to lower the rope, Billy,” the scout master continued. “It has a running noose at the end, you see. Slip that under your arms, with the knot across your chest. After that, when we start to pulling, do everything you can to work your feet free from the clinging quicksand.”

“That’s O. K., Hugh, and I can do it to a dot!” sang out the one below, as he took hold of the dangling rope the scout master had lowered.

Fortunately that same rope, a stout braided clothes-line or window-sash cord belonging to Hugh, was long enough to pass over the limb, and from there extend to solid ground.

“You two fellows get down on the firm bank and be ready to heave when I give you the word,” Hugh told Ralph and Bud; and after they had done this he continued: “Pull steadily now, and not with a jerk. That’s the way to do it. Work your legs as much as you can, Billy. Are you moving any?”

“Yep, and I’m being sawed in half, too, I reckon!” gasped the other; “but mebbe I c’n stand that better than being smothered, so keep it goin’, boys. ‘One good turn deserves another.’ Yo-heave-o! away she goes! That time I lifted three inches, and it ought to be easier now. Whee! good-by, old quicksand! Sorry to leave you, but ‘the best of friends must part!’”

By the time Billy’s feet had come in sight above the scanty water, his hands were able to fasten on the limb. With the waiting Hugh ready to assist him, it was not so very difficult for the boy to scramble up until he found himself astraddle there.

“Lemme breathe a little here first, fellows!” wheezed Billy, as red in the face as a turkey. “You joshed me when I was startin’ out, Ralph, and said mebbe the old bullfrogs might turn on me. Well, they didn’t, but their best friend, the creek, did everything it knew how to take revenge.”

“But didn’t you get any frogs; we heard you shoot lots of times?” Bud asked.

“Sure I did, one with every shot, and there’s a round dozen lying up on the bank, where I tossed ’em after I found I was stuck in this sand. I’m rested some now, boys, and I think I’ll get ashore.”

When he had successfully negotiated the limb and descended the trunk, Billy was seen to affectionately pat the bark as though he should always cherish fond memories of that friendly tree.

“I’m going to coax one of the fellows to take a picture of it for me,” he declared, “and every time I look at it, I’ll think what a nice thing it is to have a friend in time of need.”

They soon found the big frogs where the hunter had tossed them. Billy admitted that he fancied he had had enough of the sport for one day. As there were a baker’s dozen in all, and it was not certain that every fellow would care to taste such an odd dish, his decision was perhaps wise.

So he washed his soiled legs, and put on his shoes and socks, which he had been carrying suspended from his belt up to the time he thought it best to hurl them ashore after his game.

Some of the boys took quite a fancy to the novel food, but others nibbled and threw up their hands, saying they did not like the slightly fishy taste, though it was certainly true that the meat was as tender as spring chicken.

So another day had passed. Hugh was secretly glad that so far they had heard nothing to indicate that trouble had broken out over at the headquarters of the striking cement workers. When he prepared to settle down that night, after arranging for the watch, Hugh’s last injunction to the sentries was that they should call him if they heard any suspicious sounds in the direction of the scene of the labor war.

The night passed peacefully away, and not a single event happened calculated to cause alarm. With the coming of another day, the scouts busied themselves after their usual fashion in laying out ambitious plans, but, owing to circumstances which none of them could foresee, none of them were fated to be carried into effect.

Indeed, hardly had they finished eating than there came a sudden loud angry burst of distant shouts, quickly followed by the report of a number of guns. Then, after a brief silence, while the boys were standing there listening with intentness and anxious faces, another chorus of voices came rolling over the two miles of space that lay between the scouts’ camp and the village of the foreigners, as well as the cement works in which they had formerly labored day after day until agitators caused them to make demands upon their employers and quit in a body.

A second time the sound of scattered gunshots came to the strained ears of the boys, with many frenzied shouts that now seemed to tell of terror, as though the rioters might have been awed by the show of force, seeing so many of their number shot down in cold blood.

Again silence brooded over the land, a silence that was eloquent of terrible possibilities, and which gave Hugh one of the queerest sensations he had ever experienced as in imagination he could see the field of battle where all this fighting was taking place.