CHAPTER XXI
A REMEMBERED FACE
The next half hour proved to the three chums to be little less than a nightmare.
They had heard before of the treacherousness of a huckleberry swamp—there was such a swamp near their homes in which a boy and a girl had lost their lives—but never before had they realized what an inanimate monster such a swamp could be.
This present swamp was perhaps a quarter of a mile in diameter. It lay low near one end of the island and was surrounded by huckleberry bushes from four to seven and even eight feet in height—sturdy bushes that in mid-summer bent low with their loads of fruit. In the swamp were numerous other bushes, with here and there tufts of coarse swamp grass. Between these bushes and tufts of grass was the treacherous ooze and slime into which the girls were rapidly sinking.
The more they struggled to free themselves, the more deeply they were caught. Their cries for help brought no response.
In their merry chase over the island they had run farther from the picnic grounds than they had thought. Or perhaps the other girls, not as lazy as they had pretended, had wandered off in another direction, putting still greater distance between them and the unfortunate victims in the swamp.
Exhausted between their cries for help and their efforts to free themselves from the muck and slime, the three girl chums finally gave up and stared at each other in helpless despair.
"I guess we'll have to stay here like flies stuck on flypaper for the rest of our natural lives," said Nan resentfully.
"But suppose we should sink in still deeper?" wailed Sadie. "There isn't any solid bottom to this thing. We'll be k-killed!"
"Wait a minute!" in Jo's voice there was sudden hope. "There's a board over here. If I can only reach it——"
What she had not seen before, half hidden as it was among the heavy bushes, was a board about a foot wide and seven or eight feet long. From the appearance of it, it seemed to have once been a part of a boat—an old boat probably drifted upon the island and long since fallen to pieces.
"If you can only get it without falling in up to your neck," Nan said anxiously. "Do be careful, Jo."
"My dear, as Miss Tully says, 'to be careful under such circumstances is a practical impossibility.' Still——"
Reaching for the board, Jo slipped and almost fell. Nan and Sadie screamed and made an instinctive gesture toward her, only to flounder helplessly. The nightmare of it!
But Jo recovered herself and reached pluckily for the board again. This time she touched it and, with the tips of her fingers, drew it toward her.
"Jo, do you think it will bear your weight and not let you down into the mud again?"
"If it does we won't be any worse off than we are now," said Jo grimly. "Anyway, we've got to try something."
She tested their frail hope tentatively, then gave a cry of joy.
"Girls, the other end of it is on solid ground. I think we can make it!"
Here was good news. Jo had at least found where solid ground was.
Steadying herself by the board, Jo gradually managed to get one foot free. Gingerly she rested it upon the board. The board sank deep into the mud, even beneath that light weight.
"Suppose it should break!" cried Sadie, and Nan turned upon her in exasperation.
"Stop supposing!" she cried. "We can't afford it!"
Working as carefully and quickly as she could, Jo managed to get a foothold on the board before it became too deeply mired. She ran lightly up it toward the part that rested on solid ground. The other girls watched her breathlessly.
If the boardshouldbreak!
But it held! A moment more and Jo felt the blessed surety of solid earth beneath her feet.
"Hooray!" cried Nan. "Now you'd better run back and get that piece of rope in the boat. Something tells me we're going to need it."
"No, wait a minute. I think I can reach you with the board."
Dragging the board after her, Jo made her way cautiously around the swamp, feeling each foot of ground before she ventured to rest her weight upon it.
"There now!" she cried when she had come as near to her chums as she dared. "I'll shove it toward you, Nan, and you see if you can catch hold!"
Nan could not—quite. But after a desperate effort she managed to force herself forward the required inch or two until she felt her fingers upon the plank.
"Now, Sadie, see if you can't catch hold of Nan. Then I can pull you both out!"
Sadie struggled hard and finally managed to catch Nan's outstretched hand.
"Now!" cried Jo, clutching her end of the board firmly. "Heave ho, and I'll pull you ashore!"
There was a good deal of scrambling and puffing and panting before Nan, holding fast to the board, felt her foot strike upon solid ground.
The rest was easy, and it was only a moment before Sadie also had joined the two disheveled, mud-drenched girls on the edge of the swamp.
They eyed each other oddly for a moment, then broke into hysterical giggles.
"Whatarewe going to do?" cried Nan. "We never can go back to the Hall looking like this."
"I guess we'll have to," said Jo practically. "We can't stay here all night. That's a sure thing."
"What we need is a fire," Sadie said, as they started to skirt the swamp and find their way to the picnic grounds. "If we could dry our clothes we might be able to scrape some of this awful mud off them."
"Speaking of fires!" cried Jo dramatically. "Look at this!"
The girls hurried up to her and found that "this" was the ashes of a recent campfire.
"Well, what of it?" said Sadie wonderingly. "It isn't so odd for people to build a campfire in the woods, is it?"
"No, but this campfire was built just recently—and put out only a short time ago," returned Jo, thoughtfully stirring some of the still smoldering embers with her foot. "And now I wonder," she added, looking oddly at her companions, "why these campers, whoever they were, didn't come to our aid when we called for help. They must have heard us!"
"Miss Keeneye on the job again," Nan began banteringly, but Sadie interrupted with a sudden exclamation.
"Look there!" she cried excitedly. "That motor boat—just putting off from shore!"
The launch came out from behind a jutting portion of the island almost directly beneath the spot where the girls were standing.
With a quick exclamation, Jo ran swiftly down to the water's edge, the better to view the occupants of the boat.
One of the men turned as his companion urged the launch to greater speed and Jo saw him distinctly. She drew back with a startled exclamation.
"What is it, Jo?" cried Nan, at her elbow. "You look as though you had seen a ghost."
"I've seen worse," said Jo, in a queer voice. "One of those men in the launch was Andrew Simmer!"
It took some time for Sadie and Nan to draw a coherent story from Jo's excited lips. Never having heard very much of Andrew Simmer before and knowing none of the details concerning Mr. Morley's business troubles, they naturally could guess no reason for Jo's excitement until she gave them the more important facts.
"I've got to follow him!" Jo cried frantically. "Some way, I've got to follow him and see where he goes. Oh, look!" she pointed excitedly out upon the lake. A second motor boat had come into view. "Behold an answer to prayer!"
Before either of her companions could guess her intention, she was hailing the occupants of the second motor boat.
"Help! Help!" she cried, making a megaphone of her hands. "Help! Come quick!"
"Good gracious, Jo!" cried Nan. "They'll think you're dying!"
"I am!" retorted Jo. "I'm dying of fear that Andrew Simmer will get away! Oh, joy, they're heading in here!"
As the motor boat put in toward the shore, Jo waded out to meet it. Nan and Sadie followed.
"We're soaked anyway," said the former philosophically. "And at least the water is clean. It will even wash off some of the mud."
"Goodness, look at Jo!" gasped Sadie. "She's getting into the boat."
"Well, what did you think she was going to do—sink it?" queried Nan. "Come on, Sade, we've got to see her through this!"
The occupants of the second motor boat were three young men. Though scarcely more than boys in years, they seemed very old and experienced to the three girl chums of Laurel Hall.
One of these strangers reached out a hand to Jo as she unceremoniously scrambled over the side of the boat. Nan and Sadie followed, each helped in turn.
"That boat!" cried Jo, pointing to the first launch, which was already some distance up the lake. "Catch it! Please catch it! There's a criminal in that boat! I've got to deliver him to justice! Can your launch make it?"
"Young lady, my boat can do anything," said the boy who held the steering wheel. "If you want to overhaul that boat, why, we'll overhaul that boat."
"Oh, please, please do!" cried Jo, almost beside herself with excitement. "Everything depends upon it! Everything!"