The patrol leader glanced over his force. It was only fair that he arrange it so the weight would be as nearly equal as possible.

"Lil Artha, take Mark and Landy in the smaller skiff; the rest will go with me," he announced immediately.

Mark was the nearest chum of the patrol leader, but Elmer disliked favoritism, and hence he thus tacitly placed Lil Artha in command of the second boat. But then there was also another good reason for doing this, since the tall scout had always shown himself to be clever on the water, much more so than the bugler of the troop.

Johnny was already showing them how to pull the skiffs in by means of a rope attached to each. It was a good way of mooring them when not in use.

"Yuh see the third boat was drawed up on the sh.o.r.e here," he remarked in a disconsolate tone; "'cause I was ausin' her right along. I guess that's the reason they took the best o' the lot."

When the two boats had been brought to the sh.o.r.e, packs were distributed in the same, according to the directions of the leader.

These were not hastily tossed aboard, but placed where they would be out of the way of the one who was using the long push-pole.

"Thank goodneth we've got our camp hatchet along," remarked Ted, as he took his place, "tho even if we do lose or bweak our pole we can alwayth cut another one."

"Yep, I never go intuh the swamp without my hatchet," a.s.serted Johnny.

"Yuh see it comes in mighty handy when yuh want tuh make a fire, or cut a way through sum tangled snarl o' brush. Then, besides, I find a use fur the same in setting traps, fur mushrats ain't ther on'y kind o' fur we bags araound these diggings."

Some of the boys might have liked keeping up the talk, especially when it bordered on such an interesting subject. Elmer, however, knew that time was valuable to them just then, with such a difficult task ahead.

They had to find two parties who were secreted somewhere in the swamp; and as Lil Artha declared it was "pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Johnny stood there on the bank, and waved his hat to the scouts as he watched them poling away. They could almost imagine they heard the tremendous sigh that came from his breast as he saw a glorious chance for real fun pa.s.s from his grasp.

"Good-bye, an' good luck tuh yuh all!" he called out.

Following the serpentine pa.s.sage of clear water, the two boats soon pa.s.sed from the sight of the bound boy, though doubtless he could still hear gurgling sounds as the push-poles were worked, and the flat prows of the skiffs pa.s.sed over the numerous water-lily pads.

And now the swamp was before them.

All of the scouts surveyed the scene with lively antic.i.p.ations. They could easily understand that the immediate future might throw all manner of strange adventures across their path, and, like most boys, Elmer and his chums were ever hungry for exciting things to happen--it was in the blood.

But, then, at first the borders of the big Sa.s.safras Swamp did not look so very forbidding. Elmer warned them not to expect that this condition of affairs would last long.

"You remember what Johnny told us," he remarked so that all of them could hear his words; "it keeps getting worse the further you go in.

Things are easy to begin with, but after a while we'll have our hands full. Above all things we must keep our heads about us, for if we do that we'll escape getting lost."

"Then Johnny did admit a fellow could get lost in this place, did he?"

inquired Landy, uneasily.

"He used to lose his way often when he first started coming in here after muskrats," confessed Elmer; "and then he began to have some system about his excursions so that by degrees he got it all down pat."

"Yes, Johnny said he believed he could pole a boat pretty much into the heart of Sa.s.safras with his eyes shut or bandaged," remarked Lil Artha.

"Too bad he couldn't get off and be along with us," lamented Landy; "and Elmer, if we'd only promised Farmer Trotter five dollars a day he'd have let his help join us, I'm sure of that."

"Huh! too bad you didn't think of that before, Landy, and put it up to Elmer," jeered Lil Artha; "but I wouldn't bother too much about it if I was you. Chances are we won't get lost much; and by the same token, even if we do it'll be some kind of a sensation to wake us up."

Landy scratched his head, but not knowing how much of this was intended by his tormentor he did not reply. As they were gradually working further into the dense growth by now there was enough around them to chain their attention and arouse their interest.

In some places they could see that the sh.o.r.e stood above the sluggish water, although covered for the most part with dense shrubbery that would be difficult to pa.s.s through. Channels began to be met with running to the right and left, so that it behooved Elmer to remember the explicit directions given by the muskrat trapper if he wished to avoid getting side-tracked in the start.

Lil Artha, in the other boat, was also using his knowledge of woodcraft to some purpose. When it happened that the two skiffs came alongside he called out to Elmer, as if to settle some point he had in mind.

"Even if I hadn't listened when Johnny was laying down the law to us about the main channel in here, Elmer, I reckon I'd had no trouble stickin' to the same, up to now, anyhow."

"Why tho, Lil Artha?" asked Ted Burgoyne.

"It's just this way," continued the other, briskly, as though only too willing to show his hand, "you see Johnny has followed the same pa.s.sage in here so often now he's actually gone and left a trail behind him."

"Say, what are you giving us, Lil Artha?" demanded Toby; "on sh.o.r.e a trail is all very well, but the water leaves none. Once it settles down after a boat's pa.s.sed, I defy anybody to tell a thing about the same."

Lil Artha grinned as though he really pitied the dense ignorance of some people.

"You've got another think coming, Toby," he said, drily. "I suppose if you sat down and racked your poor brain a whole week you'd be no nearer knowing what I mean, so I'll have to explain."

"Guess you will, that," muttered Toby; "if you know yourself what you're getting at, which I doubt."

"Looky there," said the skipper of the second skiff, "do you notice that where we make this turn to the left the bushes along the point are kind of frayed, like something had rubbed against 'em a heap of times?"

"Why, yes, it does seem so," admitted Toby, reluctantly.

"All right then," continued Lil Artha; "if you'd kept your eyes about you all the while you'd seen that same thing at near every turn.

Trying to cut short when he poled along, Johnny has left a track of his pa.s.sage at every bend. I always look sharp, and I can tell as easy as falling off a log whether he went on, or cut into another pa.s.sage. And Elmer will bear me out on that explanation, too!"

CHAPTER VIII

PICKING UP CLUES

The leader of the Wolf Patrol laughed when he heard Lil Artha make this remark.

"Every word that you are saying, Lil Artha, is the truth," he announced. "I've been watching those ragged edges of bushes myself.

You see, the time might come after a while when I'd get mixed on the directions given by Johnny Spreen. Then I'd want to have some other scheme so as to find my way."

"But after a bit, Elmer, we'll get to a spot where Johnny changed his course from one day to another, as he went to different traps; how're we meaning to regulate our hunt then?" asked Toby.

"We've got to search the best way we can for the missing skiff," Elmer explained. "If only we can find it hauled up somewhere on the bank we'll know they went ash.o.r.e at that point, don't you see?"

"Why, how eathy!" declared Ted, evidently lost in admiration for the simplicity of the scheme, that could never have occurred to him before.

"Oh! then, if that's the case I reckon we'd better not be making quite so much racket as we go along," said Mark.

"I was just going to remark about that," the patrol leader added. "If all of a sudden we found the boat, and had been talking loud, or laughing, the chances are the game would give us the slip. So after this whoever is doing the pushing try not to splash more than you can help; and when you talk do it in whispers."

Perhaps all this mystery added to the pleasure of such a fellow as Lil Artha; at least his eyes were sparkling much more than their wont as he continued to ply his pole with the air of a Venetian gondolier along the Grand Ca.n.a.l.

Once, however, he must have rammed it too hard into the yielding ooze, for when he tried to pull it out there was considerable resistance.

Lil Artha managed to stop the moving skiff in time to save himself; even then he might have been pulled overboard only that watchful Mark, antic.i.p.ating something of the sort, threw his arms around the long legs of the pusher, and held on grimly until the pole could be extricated.