So then, Hike couldn’t rush out. Glancing about the shack, he made out the window beside the door. All its glass was broken; half its frame gone. If he could get over to that window and drop out something on the peaceful Snafflin—! He noticed a long bed-slat in the heap of broken furniture. That would do the trick. He gave a quick though quiet jerk. His wrist bonds strained, then the acid-rotted cord pulled apart, strand by strand. His hands were free, though the cord still clung obstinately about his left wrist. Then he broke the rope between his ankles. But he still lay there, till after Snafflin had taken another lazy glance into the cabin, and had settled down still more comfortably. Then Hike made a quick, low-bent, silent dive, and caught the bed-slat out of the pile of furniture. He sprang to the window. He thrust out the slat. Snafflin’s rifle lay near the window, outside the shack. Hike poked the end of the slat underneath, lifted the rifle, and hurled it away. It clattered down on a rock, fifteen feet away. The surprised guard sat up, with a jerk. Hike brought the slat down, hard, on the head of Snafflin, who fell back on the door-stone. Hike ran to the door, leaped out over Snafflin, and darted away from the cabin. Behind him, he heard the man’s shrill, ugly voice, whimpering loudly, “Bat! Bat! He’s got away!” Hike was almost instantly in the darkness, confused by bushes and pools of water. He fell flat over a broken bough, on the earth. He was all confused, as he scrambled up. His legs were both stiff and weak. They wanted to give way. But he made them go, and plunged down hill, through the underbrush, toward the marsh where he could again hear the frogs. If he could gain that, he could at least make it hard for the two men to catch him. He heard them raging, cursing, running, behind him. He crossed a bog, and suddenly he was ankle-deep in mud, while the mosquitoes sang about him in crowds. He tested the mud carefully and kept going, onward, into the marsh, though the mud grew deeper, and presently he had to cling to the branches of what seemed, in the utter darkness, to be stunted oaks, to keep from sinking in. Hike had swiftly decided that the one thing the men would _not_ expect a youngster to do was keep on going into a marsh. They would be sure to think that he would either reach the road, or stay on the edge of the marsh. He quietly broke off tree branches, and made of them a safe matting which would not let him sink into the mud. Then he wrapped his coat about his head, to keep off the scourge of mosquitoes, and pulled his trouser cuffs down to his shoe tops, to protect his ankles. Even so, the pests tormented him. But he kept very still, peering out of a tiny opening at the coat collar, which he had left for his eyes.