“Hold fast! we’ll soon have you out of that muck!” called Phil, after he and Tony McGee arrived at the edge of the quagmire, where poor Larry was up to his waist in the oozy mud.

Their coming had given the imperiled lad new vim; it seemed to him as though his muscles were renewed, and that he could keep on gripping that branch everlastingly now, such was the fresh faith that took the place of grim despair.

Tony knew just how to go about it. Phil, seeing his lead, started to also throw all sorts of loose leaves and wood upon the surface of the mud.

So fast did they work that in a short time they had a fine covering close up to Larry himself. Thus each of them could get on one side of him, and then heave all together.

“Pull for all you’re worth when we give the word,” said Phil, as he took a good hold under Larry’s left arm, while Tony attended to his right. “Now, all together, yo heave-o! Bully! you moved then, old fellow! Now, once again, yo heave-o! That time you came up two inches, I bet. Don’t let him sink back, Tony. A third time now, all in a bunch!”

And so by degrees Larry began to ascend. The further he drew out, the easier the job seemed; until finally they dragged him ashore.

“Oh, my goodness, wasn’t that a tight squeeze though!” gasped Larry, sinking on the ground in almost a state of complete collapse.

Phil saw that he was nearly all in, and so instead of scolding him on account of his carelessness, he started in to make humorous remarks, just to get his chum’s mind off the terrible nature of his recent adventure.

With sticks they scraped him off, for he was a sorry sight, the black mud clinging to his fine corduroy hunting trousers as far up as his waist. But after all, that was a mighty small matter. His life had been spared, and Larry would not mind having his garments carry the signs of his narrow escape ever afterwards.

“Now to get back to the boat,” said Phil, when he found that his comrade had so far recovered that he could walk; though his hands still trembled.

“But wait,” said Larry, eagerly. “You surely won’t think of going back without that fine turkey over there, will you? It gave me heaps of trouble, and came near costing me dear. The best revenge I can have is to make a meal or two from the plagued old gobbler that tricked me on all this way.”

“Oh! Tony’s got the royal bird, all right,” laughed Phil. “While I finished scraping you off, so you wouldn’t have such a load to carry with you, he completed the little bridge of leaves and trash, crossed on it as you should have done in the beginning, and came back. Here’s your gobbler; and quite a hefty bird, too. Just lift him once, will you, Larry? And to think that he’s your game! But Larry, own up now, did you see him when you fired?”

“I refuse to commit myself,” replied the other, with assumed dignity that hardly went with his forlorn appearance. “It’s enough that I nailed him, and he’s going to fill us up for a meal or two. Lead on, Macduff! I’m able to toddle, I guess.”

Tony took his bearings, and then they started. So accurately had the swamp boy judged their location, that he led them almost directly to the boat. And there was great joy in the breast of Larry Densmore when he sank down on the ground to remove his muddy trousers, so that he might not soil the interior of the motor boat.

Fortunately he had another pair along with him, so that by the time Tony had unfastened the cable ashore, and Phil turned his engine over, Larry was decently dressed again.

But it might be noticed that he was not as frisky as usual the balance of that afternoon, being content to cuddle down, and rest. Phil saw a serious look on the usually merry countenance of his chum. He knew from this that Larry had really suffered very much while facing such a doleful end. Nor did he blame him one whit.

Owing to the amount of time that had been consumed in following Larry, and getting him back to camp after his rescue, they could only expect to keep moving for a couple of hours more; when the coming of evening would necessitate their stopping for the next night.

Phil felt a strange little thrill as he reflected that possibly when yet another day had closed in they would have advanced far enough on their journey to admit of a possibility that they might run across some of the shingle-makers of the big swamps.

“Keep on the lookout for a tying-up place, Tony,” he said, as he saw that the sun was sinking low.

“Not much good place along here,” remarked the swamp boy, shrugging his shoulders in disgust. “Thought we get below this to-day; but stayed too long above.”

“Which of course was my fault,” spoke up Larry, immediately; “but even if it does look spooky around here, with all that Spanish moss hanging from the trees, we can stand it for one night.”

“Sure,” said Phil; “especially since we don’t have to go ashore, to cook supper. We’ll give our little gas stove a try-out this time, and show Tony how well it can fill the bill.”

So finally Tony picked out as decent a place as he could find; Phil worked the Aurora close in; the swamp boy sprang ashore in Larry’s place holding the rope; and presently the motor boat was snugly moored against the bank.

Larry thought there might be fish around, but lacked the ambition to even make a trial. All his muscles seemed sore by now; and Phil knew that it would be some days ere his chum felt as chipper as was his wont.

“Besides, what’s the use?” Larry remarked, even as he mentioned the fact as to the fishy appearance of the water. “We’ve still got a lot of that bully venison aboard; and that fine turkey Tony is going to bake in his home-made oven ashore. Why, we’ll be just filled up with grub, hang the fish! I don’t care enough about them just now to bother.”

Tony was already ashore, at work on his oven. Just as Phil had described to his tenderfoot chum, he first of all dug out a big hole, and started a hot fire going in it, using the dead leaf stalks of the palmetto as a beginning. Then he fed other wood, which he seemed to select carefully, until he finally had a furious red hot mass of embers there.

Meanwhile he had plucked the turkey, and made it ready for cooking.

“Time we’re done eatin’ oven be ready,” he announced, as Larry called him aboard to supper; he having prepared the meal over the little Jewel stove, finding a way to keep things warm as fast as he cooked them.

Later on Tony drew out all the red ashes. The oven was very hot at that time. He wrapped the turkey in some green leaves, and thrust it into the hole; after which he took pains to cover the opening up, and heap earth over it all.

Of course Phil knew the principle of the thing, though up to now he had never been a witness to the actual demonstration. It acted on the same principle used with the new-fangled bottles that keep fluid hot for several days, or cold, just as it happens to be put into the receptacle. And the fireless cookers are also arranged on the same old time natural laws of retaining heat.

“Listen to the racket coming out over yonder!” remarked Larry, as they lay around at their ease later on, each having a blanket under him.

“Tony says that there’s a big swamp lying over there,” observed Phil. “And I warrant you he can tell what makes every sound you hear. One comes from some kind of bird squawking; another I happen to know is a night heron looking for a supper along the water’s edge; then I suppose coons squabble when they meet, trailing over half sunken logs; a bobcat calls to its mate; the owls tune up; chuckwillswidows, the same birds that we call whippoorwills up North, you know, keep a whooping all the time; and there are all sorts of other noises that might stand for anything. But Tony, tell me, what is that far-away booming we hear?”

“Bull!” remarked the other, with a chuckle.

“You don’t mean it?” exclaimed Larry, sitting up to listen. “Well, now, it does sound like it, too. But see here, Tony, didn’t you say only a little while ago, that there wasn’t a single man within twenty miles of us; unless it might be some runaway darky hiding out in the swamp to escape the chain gang?”

“That is so, Larry,” replied the swamp boy, who was by now growing familiar enough with his comrades to call them by their first names. “This no reg’lar bull. It never saw farmyard. It live in water, come up on shore sometime, and holler to make ’nother bull come fight.”

“Oh! you mean an alligator bull, don’t you?” cried Larry, “how silly of me not to understand at first. And is that one bellowing now? He must be a giant to make such a row.”

“Not so big, like ten feet p’raps,” replied Tony, carelessly.

“How big do they run about fifty feet?” asked the ignorant one; at which Tony actually laughed, the first time they had ever really heard him give way.

“Never hear of such big one, Larry. Twelve feet, some say fifteen most. And that professor he tell me ’gator that big more’n two hundred years old, much more!”

“Whew; what a whopper!” exclaimed Larry, though whether he meant the age of the saurian, or the story told to the swamp boy, he did not explain.

“One thing sure,” remarked Phil, as the time drew near for them to retire, “with that blessed old swamp, and its many nasty inhabitants so close by, I’m going to keep an eye out again tonight. Perhaps we won’t be disturbed by another bobcat; but I wouldn’t feel quite easy unless I kept my good Marlin handy. So, boys, if you hear me making a noise again during the night, don’t get alarmed. I won’t be talking in my sleep, be sure of that. But listen, Tony, what animal do you suppose makes that far-away sound? If I didn’t know we were cut off from civilization I’d say it was the baying of a dog at the moon.”