"Oak Swamp," mused Bart. "It's a good thing it's coming on winter instead of summer, or we'd be eaten up with mosquitoes. Well, let's get out of here. I don't like the place."
Indeed it was gloomy and dismal enough at any time, but now, on a late fall evening, with darkness fast approaching, it was anything but an inviting place. The swamp derived its name from a number of scrub oak trees that grew in it. During the summer it was a treacherous place to visit, for there were deep muck holes scattered through it, and more than one cow, and several horses, had broken out of the pastures, and wandered into the wet place, only to sink down to their deaths. It was said that several years before a man had endeavored to cross the swamp, had been caught in a bog hole, and sucked down into its depths, his body never having been recovered.
So it was with a feeling of no little satisfaction that Bart and his chums found themselves able to leave the gloomy place sooner than they had expected.
"It'll be a good joke on the others," remarked Ned, as he gathered into a heap, the rope fetters that had bound him. "We'll sneak away, and when those fellows come back for us they'll think we've rolled into the swamp, and sunk, and they may make a search for us. Let's hide the cords and bandages."
"Sure," agreed Frank. "We'll turn the tables on them."
"Well, whatever we do, let's get away from here," suggested Fenn. "It's too gloomy for my notion. Look, there's the ledge they lowered us from. It isn't two feet high, but it seemed like a hundred," and he pointed to a small ledge of rock, where Sandy Merton and his mates had stood as they lowered from the wagon the lads who were being initiated. Had it not been that Sandy stood on the end of the vehicle, he would not have been high enough to bring about the delusion of the boys going down into some bottomless pit.
The four chums had gathered up the severed ropes, and, folding the bandages up in them, hid them all under a big stone. Then they started for home.
Oak Swamp was several miles from the town of Darewell, but there was a fairly good road between the places, since the swamp was but slightly off to one side of the main thoroughfare. As the four started off, with Fenn in the lead, they chuckled to think of the blank looks of the initiating team, when the members should return for the candidates, to find them missing.