“Maybe so,” agreed Fritz. “You lead der vay, Misder Miller, und I vill keep up mit you uf I gan.”
So they hastened onward, moving through the swamp as swiftly as possible, and soon the voice came to them louder and plainer, and Fritz uttered an exclamation:
“I think dot voice sounds lige der voice uf Dick Dare, alretty,” he said.
“Then he has tried to make his way through the swamp and has fallen into the bog, likely, and unless we get to him pretty soon, and render him assistance, he may sink beneath the surface and be smothered to death.”
“Let us hurry, then, Misder Miller. I don’d vos vant Dick to ged choked mit der bog, alretty.”
They hastened onward, making, for Fritz, wonderfully fast progress, and a few minutes later they caught sight of someone up nearly to his arm-pits in the bog. And at sight of him an exclamation escaped the lips of Fritz.
“Id is Dick!” he cried. “Und he is avay down in der bog. Ve must save him, Misder Miller.” Then he lifted up his voice and called out loudly: “Dick! Dick Dare! Here ve are. Ve haf gome to hellup you ouid.”
Dick looked in their direction, and caught sight of them. “Good for you, Fritz, old comrade,” he cried, eagerly. “Hurry and get over here as close as possible, and help me out of this.”
“Ve are goming, Dick,” said Fritz. “Lead on, Misder Miller.”
Miller advanced as swiftly as he could, following the winding of the path, but suddenly he found that there was no continuation. He had reached the end of the stretch of solid earth. And they were still twenty-five or thirty yards from Dick Dare.
“This is as far as the path extends, Mr. Dare,” said Miller, a disappointed tone to his voice. “What shall we do?”
“I hardly know, stranger,” was the reply.
“If you had a rope to throw to me, you could pull me out; but you have no rope?”
“No. This is a difficult proposition, sure. But we must reach you and get you out of there, somehow.”
“Yes, and you will have to hurry, for I don’t like this situation at all.”
“Have you anything to suggest?” asked Miller.
“The best plan, to my mind, would be to climb from tree to tree, till you reach this one nearest to me, and then perhaps you can break off a limb and reach it down to me.”
Miller managed to spring across a boggy place to a tree a few feet distant, and then he climbed up into it. He worked his way out on a limb, and got from that tree to the next one, then on into the next tree, and kept this up till he was in the tree nearest to Dick.