Later in the day we reached the railroad and that night camped in a ravine. The next day dawned hot and clear. Mile after mile we trudged down the track, for the roads were still too wet for riding. Houses were scarce and stood far away from our course; there were no streams near or other places to obtain drinking water. Our thirst increased as the day wore on, and when at last we saw a farmhouse in a group of trees some half mile from the track, Dan suggested that I remain with the bicycle while he crossed the several pastures that lay between and brought back a kettle of water. So I sat beside the wheel on the edge of the embankment while Dan climbed the fence and disappeared in the trees. In a few minutes a dreadful commotion arose from the direction of the farmhouse. A great, roaring voice was booming like a cannon. “Get out! ... ornery hide. You....” Inarticulate outcries and oaths mingled with scattered words and phrases. I listened appalled. I knew the attitude that some farmers maintained towards tramps, and I trembled for Dan’s safety. The racket increased in violence. I became frantic and determined to go to the rescue. Unstrapping the hatchet from the handle bars, I slipped the thong about my wrist and plunged under the railroad fence and across the field, determined to take a short cut to the scene of combat. Worming a difficult passage through a barbed wire fence, I came to a black, sluggish creek or strip of mud perhaps eight feet wide, bordered by a thick row of trees, whose branches hung low over the surface. An extremely stout barbed wire fence stretched at right angles across this stream and joined a similar fence on the farther bank. I paused on the brink, for the black, slimy surface was repellent. The outcries redoubled and from where I stood whole sentences became intelligible. “Come on now, you ... son of a gun! Get out of that gate, you. Oh, if I could only reach you with a club. I’ll shoot your hide full of holes in about a minute.” I gazed anxiously up and down. My only course was to wade across. Grasping the hatchet firmly, I swung my arms, made a little run, a jump and plunged in. Down, down I sank, deeper and deeper. I laboured furiously to reach the further bank, but my struggles only increased the rapidity with which I sank. The thick, black slime rose higher and higher about me. I tried to scream, but my parched lips could utter no sound. We have no quicksands or sloughs in my home country, but I have read of such places and heard of horses and cattle and sometimes human beings going down, never to be seen again. I thought of Dan escaping from the farmer and returning to find the abandoned wheel. Of his wife, there would be no trace. My end would always remain a mystery. As the black mud sucked me down, I could imagine it rising to my chin, my lips, my nostrils. I could picture the inky surface closing over my head, shutting out the sunlight forever.