Scott awoke in the morning with the sun shining full in his face. He had been so dead to the world that it was hard for him to realize where he was and how he came to be sleeping on the open beach with the waves of the rising tide lapping the sands within a few feet of him. Suddenly the events of the night before came to him and a feeling of horror crept over him when he realized what a risk they had run by exposing themselves in that way right in the enemy’s country.
“Good thing they waited for us instead of coming to look for us,” he thought, as he sat up to reconnoiter. His first glance was down the beach in the direction from which they had come. A chill ran over him that seemed to leave him paralyzed; he just stared. Then he rubbed his eyes to see if he was really awake. It seemed like the continuation of a dream which had been haunting him for a good part of the night.
There were Roberts and Qualley not over two hundred yards away and walking rapidly straight toward them. With the realization that was far from a dream, that these men were only too real and were hastening forward on his trail now eager with the hope of getting a shot at him, Scott came to life with a violent jerk. In two more minutes they could not help seeing him if, indeed, they had not discovered him already.
He formed his plan instantly. There seemed to be only one chance. Flattening himself as close to the sand as possible to escape notice, he reached out quickly and shook Murphy’s shoulder at the same time warning him not to move or speak. Murphy was a light sleeper and he was wide awake the instant Scott touched him, wide enough awake to take in his meaning at once. He simply looked at Scott inquiringly without moving his head or body at all.
“They are after us, Murphy. They are on our trail and not more than a few rods away. Our only chance is to try to slip into the creek without being seen and hide in the bushes over there in the swamp. Careful now, but hurry.”
Murphy took a hasty peek at the two men and felt for his gun. The holster was empty and his face fell. He had pretended to Scott that he had lost it in the quicksand, but he did not know that he had. He had been inclined to fight when he saw that there were only two men in the approaching party, but now there was no chance. He twisted sullenly about on the sand and wriggled down the gentle incline after Scott, who was already headed for the creek alligator fashion. It was uncomfortable business, for they had seen their enemies so clearly that it was hard to realize that they had not been seen. They rather expected to hear the crack of a rifle any minute.
They slid quietly into the water and made for the opposite shore, or rather the opposite rim of brush, for there was no shore there. Scott swam under water and managed to make shelter without coming to the surface. Murphy could not do that, but he held his breath and crawled on the bottom as fast as he could. He had to come up for air, but he stuck only his nose out of water like a hunted loon, and was able to take his next breath in the shelter of a titi bush. They hastily selected a dense bush just beyond for a hiding place and worked their way to it carefully. Fortunately for them the bottom of the swamp was sandy or a trail of muddy water might have betrayed them. They were no farther away from the shore than that. They submerged themselves to their eyes and waited.
“Ought not to have any trouble in keeping cool here,” Murphy whispered with his usual humor. No matter how glum Murphy was feeling, danger immediately brought his wit to his rescue.
They could look out through the small openings in the bush without much danger of being seen. The men were so close that Scott could see the expression on their faces. He could see that Roberts, who was eagerly setting the pace a little way ahead of his companion, was triumphant now and sure that the fight was won. He could even see the ugly cut on Roberts’ lip and how he longed for the opportunity to put another one beside it.
The men had reached the edge of the creek now a little ways above, at the point where the boys had taken to the water the night before in their eagerness to reach those quicksands. They heard a burst of profanity from Roberts. “Taken to the water like a couple of foxes,” he exclaimed angrily. His eye wandered down the bank of the creek and was quick to catch the tracks in the sand where the boys had slept. Roberts almost ran in his eagerness. Qualley walked slowly and thoughtfully, looking for other signs.
Both men stared for a long time at that peculiar-looking conglomeration of tracks with puzzled faces. They could not understand the peculiar trail the boys had made when they had wriggled down into the creek a few minutes before. Scott thanked heaven that there was no way to tell in that dry sand how recently those marks had been made.
Qualley squatted down and examined every detail carefully. “That is evidently where they slept,” he said, pointing to the impressions of the outstretched figures. “I think I know what they did. They went over there and tackled that quicksand and got stuck. They managed to get out of it and came over here on the beach to rest up and decide what they were going to do next. But blessed if I can figure out what they were doing there,” and he pointed to the peculiar slides. He arose suddenly and looked out toward the cape. “Don’t suppose they could have built a raft and made the cape, do you?” he asked, as though questioning himself.
“No signs of their having built one here,” Roberts replied, “but it looks as though they had pulled something into the water. Might have been an old plank, but that would have been water-logged and would not float.”
Qualley turned thoughtfully from the cape and fixed his gaze absent-mindedly on the very bunch of brush behind which the boys were hiding. It seemed to them that he must see them and they both involuntarily sank a little deeper into the water. Between the excitement and the chill of the swamp water their teeth were chattering so that they were afraid it would be heard clear across the creek.
Qualley shook his head slowly. “No, there is only one thing that they could have done; they must have tried to cross the swamp. We can see plain enough that they were here and there are no tracks leading away from here. They did not build a raft and Murphy can’t swim, so there is nothing left but the swamp. Well, I wish them joy of their trip.”
Roberts hated to give in. “There is not much chance of their getting across, but I wish we knew what had happened to them so that we would not be in suspense so long. It will be a week before we can be sure that they did not get away. Possibly they got foxy and followed up the edge of the creek a ways to shake us off the trail.”
“We can soon find that out,” Qualley replied; “we can follow the edge of the swamp up to where the others are waiting and see whether we can pick up any tracks. They could not have passed us that way in the night or we would have heard them. Nothing could move through that brush without making an awful racket, especially at night.”
“If we don’t find anything,” Roberts grumbled, “I suppose it will be up to us to beat it for that cursed cabin and wait to see what happens.”
“Yes,” Qualley said indifferently, “it would not be safe to put it off much longer. I’ll keep a watch out for them around here for a while longer to make sure that they do not come back out of the swamp and then go back to the camp and wait to see if they get back there. If they show up I’ll let you know at once. If they have not come through by the end of a week it will probably be safe to get back to work again.”
When Qu............