“It may not be,” said Bruce, “yet there may be air-holes. We’ve got so far to go that we may find almost anything--air-holes, quicksands, or anything else. Still, I don’t believe that we’ll meet with any.” “Well, let’s wait till the tide gets down to the bows, and then start,” said Tom. With this the boys prepared for their journey. These preparations consisted in nothing but getting some stout sticks, which they made by splitting up a board, and smoothing each piece with a knife. After this they informed Mr. Simmons of their intention. He looked aghast, and then told them that they would get too muddy. At this they laughed, and said that they were covered with mud from their many experiences in the voyage, and couldn’t be much worse. So Mr. Simmons looked at them from head to foot, and then at himself. By this he discovered that the boys were in a comfortably muddy condition, and what was more, that he, Mr. Simmons, he himself, was decorated with many mud marks, which sadly marred the beauty of his black attire. This discovery filled him with such horror that he hurried below, where the sound of a brush in violent exercise showed the boys that he was trying to eradicate the stains, so as to prepare himself for a solemn entry into the village. He did not appear on deck again. Captain Corbet, however, on learning their proposal, had much more to say about it. He listened with staring eyes, and then declared that they all were crazy. “Crazy? Why, ye’re mad as March hares! Do ye know that that there mud is full of air-holes, an’ inhospitable for man an’ beast? Horses air lost there every year. So air knows likewise. People shun it. Death lurks there. I wouldn’t go there for all the gold in Californy There’s quicksands, and there’s air-pots, and there’s holes of all kinds, there’s deep gulps that you can’t cross no how.” “But did you ever hear of an accident?” “Course I have. My feyther told me onst about a neighbor of his’n that lost a friend down hereabouts. He was found next day lying on the shore up there--thrown up by the tide. Besides, my wife’s ma told me of people that’s been a-missin’, an’ what it’s strongly suspected that they kind o’ strayed down here, and got drownded. What d’ye say to that?” “O, it’s all the same. There are five of us. We’ll help one another.” “Ah, ye’ll help one another! Yes, but to sartin ruination. Why, see here. Look at me. I’m more anxious, a hundred times, to got ashore than you be. I’m a feyther. I’ve got a pinin’ babby that I’m a-yearnin’ after. I’ve got a kind of homesick feel-in’, that never leaves me, arter him; ’ee bessed chicken, so it was! But do I go an’ resk my life? Do I throw myself away? Do I walk over quicksands, an’ air-holes, an’ mud gullies? Not I. I stand here like a man, an’ wait.” “All right, captain; we’ll tell them you’re comin’,” said Bart, stepping to the bows.