NIGHT IN SWAMP HOLE They listened intently. A faint breath of air was stirring and there was a whispering and rustling from the bushes above them, and for a space they heard nothing else. Then the sound of voices came, faintly, from the cabin. Pud placed the handle of his oar in Harmon’s hand. ‘I’m going to get out here,’ he said. ‘You take the boat back around the turn and keep hid. Stay there till I come. The launch will be headed upstream, and if I can get her going I’ll slow down and get you fellows aboard. Anyway, you stay here until I get back.’ ‘Wha――what are you going to do?’ asked Tim nervously. ‘I’m going to swim down there and get aboard the launch. Then I’ll let her float away farther downstream. When she’s out of sound of the house I’ll get her going and come back up here for you.’ ‘But you’ll have to pass the cabin,’ expostulated Tim, ‘and they’ll hear you coming and shoot at you! Why don’t we let the skiff float on past and wait for you below somewhere? Or why not wait till they’ve gone to sleep?’ ‘They might not go to sleep,’ replied Pud in whispers. ‘It might be all right to go on past, but suppose some one came out and saw us? It would be all up then. They’d know we were after the launch and they’d watch it. Or they might get in and chase us and catch us.’ This last possibility silenced Tim effectually. He gave doubting approval to Pud’s plan, and the latter, while Harmon worked the boat slowly toward the turn, disrobed to his underclothes, an operation extremely simple and brief. Finally, with a last whispered injunction to wait right there, no matter what happened, Pud slipped soundlessly into the water. It was surprisingly chill for a moment, but he stifled a gasp and let the current bear him away. Now and then he worked a foot or a hand, for his progress seemed to him aggravatingly slow. The fact is that he was just a little bit frightened, and when one is frightened the moments have a way of lengthening dreadfully. The skiff disappeared from his sight and the white shape of the launch drew closer. The cabin was hidden from him by the bank, but, as he floated onward, the sound of voices reached him now and then. He kept to the darker water near the margin and, as a result, once became momentarily snarled in a submerged branch. Then the bow of the launch appeared at arm’s length and he let himself along the white side until he could reach up and grasp the gunwale amidship. There he paused and listened, his heart beating hard.