Down, down, down--it was just a hubble. The oozy ma.s.s sucked it in, closed over it. It was gone.

There was nothing but the dusk and the pond, and the discordant croaking of frogs.

Then, close to where the log had been, Gilbert saw something else. It was a little dab of yellow. It grew smaller; disappeared. There was nothing to be seen now but a little spot of gray; probably some swamp growth....

No....

Just then Gilbert saw upon it a tiny speck which sparkled. There were other specks. He strained his eyes to pierce the growing darkness. He was doubtful, then certain, then doubtful. He advanced, ever so cautiously, a step or two, to see it better.

Yes. It was.

Utterly sick at heart he turned his head away. There before him, still defying by its lightness of weight, the hungry jaws of the heartless, terrible, devouring monster that eats its prey alive, stood the little rimless, perforated and decorated cap of Hervey Willetts. Joyous and buoyant it seemed, defying its inevitable fate with the blithe spirit of its late owner. It floated still, after the log and the suit-case had gone down.

And that was all that was left of the wandering minstrel.

CHAPTER XXIV

GILBERT'S DISCOVERY

Gilbert Tyson was a scout and he could face the worst. He soon got control of himself and began considering what he had better do.

He could not advance one more step without danger. Yet he could not think of going back to camp, with nothing but the report of something he had seen from a distance. He had done nothing. Yet what could he do?

He was at a loss to know how Hervey could have advanced so far into that treacherous mire.

He must have picked his way here and there, knee deep, waist deep, like the reckless youngster he was, until he plunged all unaware into the fatal spot. The very thought of it made Gilbert shudder. Had he called for help? Gilbert wondered. How dreadful it must have been to call for help in those minutes of sinking, and to hear nothing but some mocking echo. What had the victim thought of, while going down--down?

Good scout that he was, Gilbert would not go back to camp without rescuing that one remaining proof of Hervey's tragic end. At least he would take back all that there was to take back.

He pulled out of his pocket a fishline wound on a stick. At the end of the line where a hook was, he fastened several more hooks an inch or two apart. The sinker was not heavy enough for his purpose so he fastened a stone to the end of the line.

As he made these preparations, the rather grewsome thought occurred to him of what he should do and how he would feel if Hervey's head were visible when he pulled the cap away. It caused him to hesitate, just for a few seconds, to make an effort to recover it. Suppose that hat were still on the smothered victim's head....

With his first throw, the stone landed short of the mark and he dragged back a ma.s.s of dripping marsh growth, caught by the fish-hooks. His second attempt landed the stone a yard or so beyond the hat and the treacherous character of the ground there was shown by the almost instant submergence of the missile. It was with difficulty that Gilbert dragged it out, and with every pull he feared the cord would snap. But as he pulled, the hat came also. The line was directly across it and the hooks caught it nicely. There was no vestige of any solid object where the cap had been. Gilbert wondered how deep the log had sunk, and the suit-case and--the other....

He shook the clinging mud and marsh growth from the hat and looked at it. He had seen Hervey only twice; once lying unconscious in the bus, and once that very day, when the young wanderer had started off to visit his friend, the farmer. But this cap very vividly and very pathetically suggested its owner. The holes in it were of every shape and size. The b.u.t.tons besought the beholder to vote for suffrage, to buy liberty bonds, to join the Red Cross, to eat at Jim's Lunch Room, to use only Tyler's fresh cocoanut bars, to give a thought to Ireland. There was a Camp-fire Girls' badge, a Harding pin, a c.o.x pin, a Debs pin ... Hervey had been non-partisan with a vengeance.

With this cap, the one touching memento of the winner of the Gold Cross, Gilbert started sorrowfully back to camp. The dreadful manner of Hervey's death agitated him and weakened his nerve as the discovery of a body would not have done. There was no provision in the handbook for this kind of a discovery; no face to cover gently with his scout scarf, no arms to lay in seemly posture. One who _had been_, was _not_. His death and burial were one. Gilbert could not fit this horrible thought to his mind. It was out of all human experience. He could not rid himself of the ghastly thought of how far down those--those _things_--had gone.

Slowly he retraced his steps along the trail--thinking. He had read of hats being found floating in lakes, indubitable evidence of drowning, and he had known the owners of these hats to show up at the ends of the stories. But _this_....

He thought of the alighting of that bird upon the sinking end of the log. How free and independent that bird! How easy its escape. How impossible the escape of any mortal. To carelessly pause upon a log that was going down in quicksand and then to fly away. There was blitheness in the face of danger for you!

Gilbert took his way along the trail, sick at heart. How could he tell Tom Slade of this frightful thing? It was his first day at camp and it would cast a shadow on his whole vacation. Soon he espied a light shining in the distance. That was a camp, no doubt. By leaving the trail and following the light, he could shorten his journey. He was not so sure that he wanted to shorten his journey, but he was ashamed of this hesitancy to face things, so he abandoned the trail and took the light for his guide.

Soon there appeared another light near the first one, and then he knew that he was saving distance and heading straight for camp. He had supposed that the trail went pretty straight from the vicinity of camp to that dismal pond in the woods. But you can never see the whole of a trail at once and it must have formed a somewhat rambling course.

Anyway there were the lights of camp off to the west of the path, and Gilbert Tyson hurried thither.

CHAPTER XXV

A VOICE IN THE DARK

Gilbert soon discovered his mistake. When a trail has brought you to a spot it is best to trust that trail to take you back again. Beacons, artificial beacons, are fickle things. Gilbert had much to learn.

He had lost the trail and he soon found that he was following a phantom.

One of the lights was no light at all, but a reflection in a puddle in the woods. The woods were still full of puddles; though the ground was firm it still bore these traces of its recent soaking. And the damage caused by the high wind was apparent on every hand, in fallen trees and broken limbs. There was a pungent odor to the drenched woods.

Gilbert picked his way around these impediments of wetness and debris.

The night was clear. There were a few stars but no moon. Doubtless, he thought, the reflection in the puddle was the reflection of a star.

Presently he saw something black before him. In his maneuvers to keep to dry ground he had in fact already gone beyond it, and looked back at it, so to say.

Now he could see that the reflection in the puddle was derived from a light on the further side of the black ma.s.s. Other little intervening puddles were touched with a faint, shimmering brightness.

Gilbert approached the dark object and saw that it was a fallen tree.

The wound in the earth caused by its torn-up roots formed a sort of cavern where the slenderer tentacles hung limp like tropical foliage. If there was a means of entrance to this dank little shelter it must be from the farther side. Even where Gilbert stood the atmosphere was redolent of the damp earth of this crazy little retreat. For retreat it certainly was, because there was a light in it. Gilbert could only see the reflection of the light but he knew whence that reflection was derived.

He approached a little closer and was sure he heard voices. He paused, then advanced a little closer still. Doubtless this freakish little shelter left by the storm was occupied by a couple of hoboes, perhaps thieves.

But Gilbert had played his card and lost. He had forsaken the trail for a light, and the light had not guided him to camp. He doubted if he could find his way to camp from here. You are to remember that Gilbert was a good scout, but a new one.

He approached a little closer, and now he could distinctly hear a voice.

Not the voice of a hobo, surely, for it was carolling a blithe song to the listening heavens. Gilbert bent his ear to listen:

Oh, the life of a scout is free, is free; He's happy as happy can be, can be.

He dresses so neat, With no shoes on his feet; The life of a scout is free!

The life of a scout is bold, so bold; His adventures have never been told, been told.

His legs they are bare, And he won't take a dare, The life of a scout is bold!

The savage gorilla is mild, is mild; Compared to the boy scout so wild, so wild.

He don't go to bed, And he stands on his head, The life of a scout is wild!

Gilbert stood petrified with astonishment. In all his excursions through the scout handbook he had never encountered any such formula for scouting as this. No scout hero in _Boys' Life_ had ever consecrated himself to such a program.

There was a pause within, during which Gilbert crept a little closer. He hardly knew any of the boys in camp yet, and the strange voice meant nothing to him. He knew that no member of _his_ troop was there.

"Want to hear another?" the singer asked.

"Shoot," was the laconic reply.