“What?” “That I was carried away.” “How?” Aye, how, indeed? Dean Mercer confessed that his companion had thought further than he had. He was in a bad dilemma. He did not know of a certainty who his enemies were. He could prove that he had been kept from appearing at Millville because he was mysteriously a prisoner in the State reform school. But suppose that the same deft plotters who had undoubtedly placed him there had also so cunningly covered their tracks that every statement Dean might make would be refuted by circumstances? Who would believe his story? He was adjudged a thief, and---- “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” he moaned in actual distress as his true situation dawned upon him. “Work out your own salvation?” cried Marcus heroically. “How?” “Just abide by my plans for a few days. I have a scheme to work light out of darkness. I am as impatient as you are to aid my father, to see him, but I know the risk. There is plenty of time. We must first remove the risk of recapture then we can work.” “Can we remove that risk?” “You shall see,” replied Marcus confidently. It was about two o’clock in the morning when for the first time since leaving the vicinity of the prison they rested. In the near distance a whole host of fireflies seemed to line the landscape near the river, but Marcus soon explained what these were. “A charcoal camp,” he said. “Where they burn the wood?” asked Dean. “Yes. Now, then, you wait here. I want to reconnoiter a little.” Marcus was gone for over an hour. When he returned he bore quite a large bundle. “Come on,” he said. “Where to?” “Into the swamp. We mustn’t be seen here.” “Weren’t you seen?” “No.” “But the bundle?” “Clothes.” “Clothes?” repeated the mystified Dean. “Yes.” “Where did you get them?” “I’m sorry to say that I took them,” replied Marcus with a grimace. “They’re old and worn out, black as soot, and no good; but I suppose they belonged to somebody. I found them near a furnace. We had to have them, Dean. These prison suits of ours would betray us, even this far from civilization.” Marcus seemed untiring in his resolve to make escape certain. It was daylight when they waded through the last of a score of bogs and landed on a sort of island, well sheltered by reeds and willows. “No one likely to follow or find us here,” he laughed. “We’re safe at last. This is our home for a day or two, Dean.” “We’ll starve!” “I guess not. Come! a shelter first, and then sleep. I’m dead to the world.” “So am I.” They soon built a sort of hut out of branches and reeds under a tree, and then sunk into an exhausted slumber. “Noon! Wake up!” cried a cheery voice to Dean, and he sprung to his feet, aroused from a horrible dream of recapture and the solitary cell at the reform school. Marcus had matches, and directed Dean how to make a fire without much smoke. Then he went off on an exploring expedition, and returned with a triumphant shout, bearing some kind of fowl in his hand.