"There's just a chance that it runs right through that mud," Higgins was probing into the slime with a broken branch. "Yep. Here it is, about five feet down. Ugh! Pretty little piece of wading, but unless I miss my guess it will be miles before we find another fording place through that mud. Wish Willy High Pockets was here. He's the boy who could show us how." Payne looked at the span of slime between the banks. "Do you think we'll be through if we get to the other bank?" he asked. "Sure. This mess can't last forever. Hold on." Payne had stepped off into the breast-high mud. "What are you going to do?" "See if this shallow runs all the way across." "No you don't! Chances are there's a break in it in the middle and then you'd be all out of luck. I'll do the investigating." "Stay right where you are; I'm boss." Payne was forcing his way out from shore. Halfway across he stopped, panting and exhausted from the task of driving through the clinging mud. "No break?" called Higgins. "No; solid so far." "Then it's solid all the way across." Higgins leaped in and, profiting by the trail broken in the mud, came swiftly up to where Roger stood, took a desperate chance and fairly swam through the mud, and took the lead. "I'll break trail the rest of the way. Now--both together!" Pushing, pulling, falling and floundering they thrust on. The mud grew thicker, heavier, and each step in it now was an appalling effort. At last Higgins came to a stop. They were twenty feet from the farther bank and the mud had assumed the consistency of heavy clay. "Stuck?" gasped Payne. "No!" Higgins began to dig at the stuff with his hands. "Cheer up!" he panted. "Get to bank--trouble's over." They literally dug themselves forward for the rest of the way, the hideousness of their situation relieved only by the bank before their eyes and the hope of high ground held out by it. With the last bit of energy in them they freed themselves from the mud's suction and painfully crawled up the bank. "Made it!" said Higgins, dropping flat on his face. Payne raised himself on all fours and looked round through mud-caked eyes. And then he began to laugh in a way that brought Higgins' head up with a start. The high ground of the bank was a strip perhaps ten feet in width. Beyond it as far as they could see was a sea of mud similar to that which they had just wallowed through. XIV