The Meadow Brook Girls Across Country Part 14

"Here. It's no use. I can't pull myself out."

Margery was screaming at the top of her voice. It seemed as though her cries must be heard throughout the woods. No amount of urging could induce her to be quiet.

"Let her yell. Let her make all the noithe she can. Maybe thomebody will hear her," wailed Tommy.

This was good logic. Miss Elting told Buster to shout as loudly as she could. The other girls now added their voices to Buster's frantic screams. Harriet was moving about as rapidly as she dared, but she was unable to find any limbs large enough to be of much use to Miss Elting, who was nearest to the trail over which they had come. Harriet tried another experiment. Breaking down a sapling that grew beside the path she thrust this toward the guardian.

"Take hold of it," she commanded. "Have you got it, Miss Elting?"

"Yes."

"Give way loosely when I pull. I may be able to pull you out. Don't resist at all."

"It's no use, Harriet!" announced the guardian, after several minutes of the hardest sort of work on Harriet's part. "I am getting deeper in the mud with every move I make. You will have to think of something else."

"Girls, stop your screaming for a moment," called Harriet. "Tell me how you are? Are you sinking deeper into the mud or are you remaining about the same?"

"Whenever I make the slightest movement I sink in deeper. I'm keeping as still as possible," answered Hazel.

"I'm in almotht up to my waitht," cried Tommy. "I'm going to be buried alive. Oh, thave me!"

"As long as you are able to scream like that you are all right,"

comforted Harriet. "When you stop yelling I shall begin to believe you are in real trouble."

Harriet now set to work cutting down small saplings with her hatchet.

These she threw out into the s.p.a.ce between Miss Elting and the three girls. They were close together, which somewhat simplified the work. The Meadow-Brook girl knew that it would take a quant.i.ty of the small trees and limbs to support her weight, but it was the only course she knew of to follow. Fortunately for Harriet she was an athletic girl, possessing great strength for one of her age and build. Better still, she possessed a courage and will all her own. Then, too, Harriet Burrell was one of those doggedly determined persons who never know when they are worsted.

Her mind was working even more rapidly than were her hands. She had succeeded in piling up enough stuff to form a slight support for the arms of her companions. She now explained her plan to them.

"I don't think I shall be able to get you out of the mora.s.s without taking a long chance of getting in myself," she began.

"Oh-h-h-h!" cried the girls despairingly. They had relied implicitly on Harriet's resourceful brain to find the means to release them from their dangerous predicament.

"Wait until I have finished. You know that I'm not afraid. You know better than to think so," soothed Harriet. "Don't you see, if I were to get caught in the mud, your last hope would be gone? We might all perish here before any one found us."

"You are right as usual, Harriet," said Miss Elting. She was apparently calm. If she were nervous no trace of it was discoverable in her voice.

"What do you propose to do?"

"I am going to pile some more stuff on what I have already placed there.

Each of you is to throw out her arms and if possible lock hands across the barrier. When one hand gets tired change to the other one. That will keep you from sinking down much deeper. The saplings should keep you up, though it will be a rather severe strain on your arm."

"What will you do, Harriet?" asked Miss Elting.

"I am going for help."

"Oh, don't leave uth!" wailed Grace.

"Harriet is right," agreed Hazel. "It is the only thing to do. But which way will you go?"

"I will go back the way we came. I believe that if I am careful I shall be able to reach solid ground without getting off the trail. A short distance from here the ground rises somewhat and is harder. Once I reach that I shall be safe."

"But, Harriet, where will you go for help?"

"I saw the top of some farm buildings to the west of where we were just before we entered this horrid place. I think it will be best for me to hurry there. I ought to be back in a couple of hours at the outside."

"Two _hourth_!" mourned Tommy.

"That will be better than staying there all night, won't it?" demanded Harriet.

"I should say it will," agreed Hazel.

"Then hurry, dear," urged Miss Elting.

"Is any one of you in pain?" questioned Harriet.

"I think not," replied Miss Elting. "The ground is too soft to hurt.

That's the worst of it. If the ground weren't so soft and sticky we should be able to get out. Do you think you could build a fire before you go, Harriet?"

"I wouldn't dare to do so. Suppose it should spread to the trees about you after I had gone? There are cedars and small pine trees in here. The foliage of these trees is like tinder."

"You are right!" exclaimed the guardian. "To build a fire would be the height of folly. Hurry, please. We will be here when you come back," she added with a forced laugh.

"Be brave, girls. Remember, we are Meadow-Brook Girls," said Harriet, as with a shouted "good-bye" she started back along the trail on her mission. Both arms were outspread so that she might be warned by touch when getting too close to the sides of the trail.

"Girls," began Miss Elting brightly, after Harriet had left them.

"Harriet reminded us that we are Meadow-Brook Girls. Let's show that we are by giving the Meadow-Brook yell. Now. One, two, three, go!"

"Meadow-Brook. Meadow-Brook.

Rah, rah, rah!

Meadow-Brook, Meadow-Brook, Sis, boom, ah-h-h!"

The girls' voices grew stronger after the second line. The voices of Miss Elting and Tommy Thompson rose above those of the other two. Some one laughed. It was Tommy. Her laugh was a trifle hysterical, but it was a laugh, and for the moment it relieved the strain somewhat. Miss Elting gave them no time to think about themselves.

"Girls. Forty-nine Blue Bottles now," she cried, then began the chant herself, the others joining in promptly.

"Forty-nine blue bottles were hanging on the wall, Forty-nine blue bottles were hanging on the wall.

Take one of the bottles down and there'll be forty-eight blue bottles a hanging on the wall, a hanging on the wall."

They continued to chant regardless of aching throats and hoa.r.s.e voices, until every one of those offending blue bottles had been removed from the wall.

"Now the Meadow-Brook yell again. It will bring a.s.sistance to us if any one hears it," reminded the guardian. They repeated the yell.

"Gracious!" cried Miss Elting.

"Oh, what is it now?" begged Margery, in a frightened voice.

"Why, some malicious person has put all those forty-nine blue bottles back on the wall again. What shall we do?"

"I gueth we'll have to take them off," lisped Tommy, amid laughter from her companions and the guardian as well.