All the while I looked around to see if I could decide where the land might be a little harder, but I guess I must have been in the worst part of it. I decided that the safest thing I could do was to stand just where I was. I didn’t know what it was I was standing on, but anyway it didn’t seem to sink any, so I was kind of safe there, as you might say. But I knew I could never raise myself out of that place and I’d have to just stand there till I got so tired and hungry, that I’d drop down and be sucked into the marsh. So anyway, I’d have to die, I was sure of that, only I didn’t want to die any sooner than I had to. Two or three times I shouted as loud as I could, but I knew it wasn’t any use, because I was two or three miles away from any house. Even if anybody knew, I didn’t see how they could get to me and it was only by good luck that I wasn’t dead already on account of the hard thing I was standing on. Every once in a while bubbles would come up and I thought it was because that thing I was standing on was sinking lower. The marsh was just about even with my shoulders and I kept looking sideways at my shoulders all the time, so as to see if I was going down any and sometimes I thought I was. But I guess I wasn’t. The weeds stood up all around me so I couldn’t see, except up in the air and it was like being in a grave with just my head out. Gee, I thought about the fellows hiking it to Little Valley and beginning work on the house-boat and waiting for me to come, and I could just kind of hear them jollying Pee-wee, and oh, I wished I was there. I was wondering who the Silver Foxes would elect for their patrol leader and then I got to thinking how nobody, not even my mother and father, would ever know what became of me, because you can’t drag a marsh like you can a river. And it seemed kind of funny like, to die without anybody ever knowing what became of you. Pretty soon my legs began getting very tired like a fellow’s legs always do when he keeps standing in water. Only this was worse than water. I wondered how it would feel when my knees gave out and I sank down. Then I happened to think about having my hike-book with me. It was all wet and the pencil was wet too, but I held it up high out of the marsh and wrote this on one of the pages. After I wrote it I stuck it up high on one of the marsh weeds. This is where Roy Blakeley, patrol leader, Silver Fox Patrol, Bridgeboro Troop, B. S. A., was sucked down into the marsh, after he couldn’t stand up any more. I was standing on something that was hard and maybe you’ll find my body lying on that. In my desk is something I was going to give my mother for a birthday present. I send her a lot of love too. My father too. And I hope my Patrol gets along all right and that the troop has a lot of fun this summer. I hope somebody will find this. CHAPTER VI THE TIGHT PLACE