"Aw, go on!" said Jack, roughly, forgetting, in his excitement, that he was not speaking to a boy. "Don't be a goose! You can hit one if you try!"
The commanding tone irritated Lloyd, but it seemed to steady her nerves, for, flashing an indignant glance at him, she raised her rifle again, and aimed it with deliberate coolness. _Bang!_
Jack, who knelt just beside her, prepared to fire the instant her shot should send a whir of wings into the air, gave a wild whoop, and dropped his gun.
"Hi!" he yelled. "You've hit it! See it floating over there! Wait a minute. I'll get it for you!"
Crashing through the bushes he ran back to where Washington stood waiting, and, swinging himself into the saddle, spurred him down the bank. But the pony, who had never balked before with him at any ford, seemed unwilling to go in.
"Hurry up, you old slow-poke!" called Jack. "Don't you see it's getting away?"
He succeeded in urging him into the middle of the river, where the water was almost up to the pony's body, but half-way across, the pony began to plunge, and turned abruptly about. Then his hind feet seemed to give way, and he went suddenly back on his haunches. At the same instant a gruff voice called from the bank, "Come out of that, you little fool! Don't you know there's quicksand there? Head your cayuse down the river! Quick! Spur him up! Do you want to drown yourself?"
With a desperate plunge and a flounder or two, the pony freed himself, and struggled back to safe ground, past the treacherous quicksand. As Jack reached the bank he saw the White Bachelor peering at him from the back of his white horse. He was evidently on the same mission, for he wore a hunting-coat, as brown and weather-beaten as his swarthy face, and carried an old gun on his shoulder.
"You'd have been sucked clean through to China, if you'd gone much farther over," he said, crossly. "That's one of the worst places in the river." Although his tone was savage, there was a pleasant gleam in his eyes as he added: "Too bad you've lost your duck."
"Haven't lost it yet," said Jack, with a glance toward the dark object floating rapidly down-stream. He kicked off his boots as he spoke.
"Oh, Jack, please don't go in after it!" begged Lloyd. "It isn't worth such a risk." The word quicksand had frightened her, for she had heard much of the dangerous spots in the rivers of this region.