One of Donald's early visits to the lake resulted in a situation that gave him some discomfort and uneasiness, and cost him a pair of boots and spurs. He saw a brood of young ducks in a little cove and, intending to try to capture them, he ran into the water at the cove's mouth to cut them off from going back into the lake. Almost before he reached the edge of the water he sank so deep in the soft, soapy mire that he wished to get back to firm ground, but found that he could not stir. Jack had not seen what Donald was doing until he had almost reached the water, and then he called to him to come back. He now shouted to Donald to stand still. Then he ran back thirty or forty yards to his horse and, mounting, rode to the edge of the firm ground, and from there tossed his rope over Donald's head. Donald fixed it about his chest, close under the arms, and Jack shortened the rope and tried with his own strength to pull Donald out, but found that impossible. He was fast in the mire and, while he did not sink, he could move his legs not at all. Jack took a turn on the rope about the saddle-horn and started the horse away gradually. This pulled Donald over, but did not move his legs. Jack rode back again and got Donald's horse, and threw that rope also over Donald's head; then, stripping off his own coat, he tossed it to Donald and told him to wrap it around his chest and so to make a pad against which the ropes could draw. Having thus put in operation the precise thing that Hugh had done for him five or six years before, Jack stood the two horses side by side and slowly led them forward. The strain on Donald was severe. The pull bowed him forward until his trunk was parallel with the sloping beach and then suddenly, with a mighty pluck, he was drawn from the mud and thrown heavily on the ground. Jack stopped the horses, and in a moment the ropes were loosened and Donald recovered his breath. His legs were uninjured, and Jack asked him how his chest felt. "Whew! I feel as if a grizzly bear had been hugging me, and hugging me tight! Honestly, I thought I heard my ribs crack just before I was pulled out." "Well, it's not very good fun. I had Hugh do that precise thing to me once, when I was a little fellow, and I thought I was going to pull to pieces." "Do you mean to say that you ever did so foolish a trick as to walk into a mud hole like that?" Jack laughed. "In my case it was quicksand, but the effect was the same. My feet and legs from the knees downward were gripped fast and I couldn't get out. I really don't suppose I ever came as near dying as I did that day. It was just the accident of Hugh's coming into camp at the right moment, and seeing and hearing me, that got me out of it. I think on that trip I learned a couple of lessons about doing what I was told to that I have never forgotten, and my instruction came in the shape of two huge scares. Say, you seem to have shed your foot-gear in that mud."