Having now the key to the enigma explaining Steve's strange action, as well as his queer antics while floundering about out there in the little stream, both boys could easily see that May evidently spoke the truth. So those envious Spanish courtiers found it easy to balance an egg on end, after Columbus showed them how to do the trick. In another half minute they arrived on the shore of the little stream. Steve out there, with the shallow water coming now up almost to his waist, greeted their arrival with a sickly grin. "Sorry to bother you, boys," he said, "but seems like I've gone and got into a nasty pickle. Please yank me out of this, won't you?" Impetuous Bandy-legs was about to instantly start forward when Max gripped him by the arm. "Don't be foolish, Bandy-legs," he told the other, severely. "You'd only get yourself in the same boat, if you stood there and tried to drag Steve out; and two would be harder to take care of than one." "But say, don't be _too_ slow about starting something, will you?" urged Steve, once again looking nervous. "Why, I'm sinking right along, I tell you. Every time I try to get one foot up t' other goes down three inches further, because I have to bear all my weight on it. This is no laughing matter, boys. I'll be swallowed up before your eyes soon if you don't get busy. Max, you ought to know how to extricate a fellow from the quicksand!" "There are lots of ways in which it can be done," the other told him, meanwhile measuring distances with his eye, as though he already had a plan in mind. "If when you first discovered that you were sinking you had thrown yourself sideways, and started to crawl or roll, regardless of how wet you got, you might have made it, for in that way you'd have presented more of your body to the action of the sand. Then a mattress could be made from branches, weeds or any old thing, that would bear the weight of one or two of us. But I've got even a better scheme than that to work." "Please hurry!" pleaded the imprisoned boy. "Keep cool, Steve," advised Max, "because there's positively no danger, now that we're on deck." "But tell me what you mean to do, Max?" continued Steve. "Make use of this rope, which you see I just happened to fetch along," explained the other, holding up the article in question. "It's going to save time, too, because one of us would have had to run back to camp, and that must mean delay. You're deep enough in as it is, I guess." "A whole lot deeper than is pleasant, I tell you," Steve instantly added. "Why, at the rate it's sucking me down I guess in less'n a quarter of an hour the water would be up to my chin. And then, oh! fellows, just imagine how I'd feel when it began to cover my mouth. You're not going away, I hope, Max?" This last almost frantic cry was caused by a movement on the part of the one on whom poor Steve's hopes most depended.