The dark water, star-sprinkled, continued interminably between its banks, the latter now patched with groups of trees that threw pockets of blackness over the stream. Pud’s eyes closed for moments at a time, but always he managed to force them open in time to avoid running aground. He blinked longingly at the pile of canvas behind him. If he could only snuggle up under there in warmth and darkness and go to sleep! Warmth was becoming almost as desirable as slumber, for, while his wet underclothes had long since dried, the night was growing chill with the damp coolness of the swamp and he was beginning to shiver. There were things he might put on, but he would have to stop the boat to search for them in the lockers, and rather than pause he huddled lower under the gunwale and stared painfully ahead in the hope of seeing Two-Pond Run appear. Presently he sighed with relief, for the stream widened suddenly and then was lost in a larger body of water. But his succeeding sigh was one of disappointment. It was not the Run he had found, but a pond somewhat larger than Turtle Pond. He must have spent a quarter of an hour chugging about it and straining weary eyes along the shadowed margin for sign of a way out. Twice he poked the launch’s nose into the mud when what had looked like the mouth of a stream proved only a shallow. But finally perseverance won and he was going on once more along a black, tree-bordered creek that seemed to run almost at right angles to the one he had left. More time passed. His head nodded frequently, but it wasn’t safe to close his eyes now even for an instant, for this stream was far darker and turned continually to right and left. Then he found himself in another pond, a pond that was twice as large as the one he had recently found his way out of, and he threw out the clutch and stared discouragedly about him. This settled it, he told himself. Had he reached the Run, he would have somehow pegged on, but to spend another age nosing around the sides of a pond was beyond him. He was sorry for Tim and Harmon, but they’d just have to make out as best they could. As for him, he was going to sleep!