It had always been said that there was death in this marsh. There was a story of a duck hunter who had been swallowed up in it. If Hollis had not tried to swim and remained by his inverted shell, he would have suffered nothing worse than an inglorious climax to his spectacular triumph. But he had somehow got to the very center of the horrible place where no boat could penetrate. The excitement on the neighboring shore was frenzied. Some one tried to pole a boat into the marsh; it got stuck in the thickening growth and could not be moved either way. And meanwhile, Hollis' frantic cry for help rose as he sank lower, lower.... Then suddenly a great white thing seemed to fill the sky. It tumbled, shook, like some airplane run amuck. And with a loud sound of splitting wood it settled flat upon the enveloping marsh. They saw, but they hardly knew what they were witnessing. They stared aghast. Then as they saw a little living form reach out from the safe area of canvas that lay flat upon that frightful consuming mud a cheer went up--and another, and another, until the heavens seemed rent with a swelling chorus of mad acclaim. But it was not for the victorious Eagle they were screaming their lungs out as their fears subsided. It was just for the little outcast scout who, in such a sublime frenzy as only his trembling body could experience, had torn and wrenched the signal easel from its lodgment and crashed down with this spreading parachute to the rescue of the boy who had brought glory to the Elk Patrol. CHAPTER XXXIV THE PRICE Given time they managed to get a boat in somehow, poling it this way and that and finally taking the marsh, as one might say, by flanking tactics. With the large area of resisting canvas lying upon the yielding morass, there was no great need for hurry. The frame was broken, but it could not sink. And the Eagle Scout, beneath whose weight the loosened canvas sagged, was safe. No boat could have saved him. No swimmer could have averted that imminent tragedy. But the eager-eyed little fellow who squatted there on that outlandish, sustaining rug, glancing at the Eagle Scout as if he were a god, had done it. His shirt was in shreds; a great rent in his faded trousers exposed his whole thin little leg. He did not look like a boy scout at all; you could not find a picture on all of your scout posters that bears the faintest resemblance to him. As the boat neared the canvas a tall boy with a white scarf gently pushed a couple of scoutmasters aside and helped the bewildered Skinny into the boat. He seemed to intimate that Skinny belonged to him and the rest should take notice and keep their hands off. Then he allowed them to help Holly Hollis aboard. And so they made slow progress out of the dreadful place and nothing was left there but the big broken frame with its soiled expanse of canvas. A very big triumphant pennant for such a little boy!