They wallowed through miles and miles of mud, trying with long sticks each dubious looking stretch of swamp in their path. Often they were forced to turn back and circle great pools of silent black water where on the thick green scum the thin rays of sunlight smiled in derision. And then noonday arrived, with the sun hot and mocking directly over the tops of the trees. Below in Devil's Bog was a steaming heat that seemed to hiss out of the black, miry ground and every stir of air soon lost its freshness in the dank smell of the place. Toward mid-afternoon Nickie lost his head a little. "S'pose we shouldn't get out, kid?" he cried. "S'pose we should go on like this for days--we'd starve--we'd be eaten up with them mosquitoes or somethin'." Skippy tried to laugh. "I'd rather be eaten up with _somethin'_, Nickie--honest!" "Aw, I know, kid. Here, I'm older'n you--I shouldn't lose my head. Looks like I'm yeller, hah?" "Go on--it looks like you're mud and so'm I. Gee whiz, my aunt'd have a fit if she could see this suit. She paid six bucks for it on a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street." "Holy Smoke, will we ever see a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street again! Kid, if we'd only waited a little while longer, hah? Devlin had been nosin' in that bog since he left the house an' we saw he was on his way to Hillbriar. If we'd only waited--the coast woulda been clear." "What's the use thinkin' about 'if'? Gee whiz, we're here an' that's all there's to it. Anyway, we got each other. Poor Frost, in a way I feel kinda sorry for him if he's wand'rin' 'round like us. It must be terrible havin' no buddy to talk to in a place like this." Nickie was touched. "I didn't think of it that way, kid. I oughta be glad an' I _am_ glad. I'd know somethin' all right, all right, if I didn' have you. Didn't I say it seemed like Fate you'n me took such a shine to each other? Anyways, I felt you was regular the minute you come in the car." Skippy looked at him. Somehow he hadn't thought about Nickie particularly--he had never defined his feelings except that he knew he disliked the boy that the old Nickie represented, the sullen, defiant and lawless Nickie. But the new Nickie, and there _was_ a new one, walking and suffering beside him; he was kind, thoughtful and best of all loyal. He put his arm through Nickie's. "I like you the way you are now--you know it! An' if you stay that way--you know what I mean--cut out the slippery stuff an' do like your aunt wants you to, I think mebbe Mr. Conne would stand your probation." "You mean he'd get me sprung?" Nickie asked, incredulously. "If you'd promise to be like you are now an' stick to it--that's showin' how much of a friend you are, Nickie." Nickie stopped and put out his slim, muddy hand. "There's my mitt on it, pal!" he grinned. Then he looked puzzled. "Say, how come you got so much drag with Carlton Conne--that big dick, hah?"