Chapter IX: The Tramp Club to the Rescue

"Look out, Miss Elting," warned Harriet again. "The girls are in the mud."

"So am I," cried the guardian in a voice of alarm. "Oh, it's deep. I'm sinking."

"Stand perfectly still," advised Harriet. "You will get in deeper if you struggle. I'll see what I can do. I may get in, too."

"Be quick, Harriet," urged the guardian. "This is serious. I can't move an inch."

"I'll do the best I can. Oh, I wish I had some good sized limbs of trees to throw to you. Here's one. Where are you, Miss Elting?"

"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 space 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 quantity 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 morass 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 hoarse voices, until every one of those offending blue bottles had been removed from the wall.

"Now the Meadow-Brook yell again. It will bring assistance 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.

"I can't," moaned Margery. She began to choke and cough. "I've swallowed a bug."

"Oh, the poor bug. I'm tho thorry for him," piped Tommy.

"Maybe we can catch him in one of those bottles," suggested Miss Elting. "Come, girls, you aren't going to desert me now, are you? Already! 'Forty-nine blue bottles were hanging on the wall.'"

Once more the girls went over the familiar refrain, ending finally with the Meadow-Brook yell. Again and again did they take the bottles from the wall, but as often as they removed them invisible hands replaced every one of the forty-nine blue bottles in their accustomed position on the wall.

For the tenth time the forty-nine blue bottles had been taken down and hung up again. The voices of the girls were so hoarse that they could barely speak aloud, though they were laughing hysterically as they labored with the forty-ninth. They had almost forgotten that they were in danger, forgotten their aching bodies, forgotten that Harriet Burrell was speeding through the darkness in quest of assistance, when a distant but familiar cry reached their ears. It was the long drawn out "hoo-e-e-e-e" of the Meadow-Brook Girls.

Miss Elting heard it first. Her companions were laughing so immoderately that they failed to hear it the first time. The guardian's voice failed her. A lump rose in her throat. The strain had been so great that several times she found herself on the point of giving way. Now the reaction had set in.

"Hoo-e-e-e-e!"

Tommy heard it, and uttered a scream. The call was repeated. This time all the girls heard it plainly.

"It's Harriet, it's Harriet!" cried Hazel.

"Yes. Rescue is at hand," replied Miss Elting fervently.

A light twinkled far away through between the trees. It seemed to the anxious eyes of the guardian as though it were miles and miles distant. She raised her voice in a shout, but the voice was so weak that it carried but a short distance.

"Shout, girls!" she begged. "You may be able to make them hear. I can't. My voice has completely left me. Tommy! You can always scream. Do so now."

Tommy let loose a thrilling, penetrating yell. The rescue party heard it. They answered with return shouts in male voices.

"That sounds to me like boys' voices," cried Miss Elting huskily.

"Oh, thave me!" wailed Tommy. "My hair ith all tumbled down, my frock ith muddy from top to bottom and my fathe ith thmudged. I'm a thight, I know I am. I can't retheive company to-day. Thend them away, pleathe."

Some one came running toward them considerably in advance of the light.

"Girls! Girls!" shouted an anxious voice.

"Here!" cried the guardian.

"Thank goodness you're alive," answered Harriet Burrell. "I've been terribly anxious about you. Here--here's a can of fresh water. I know your throats must be dry."

Reaching forward, Harriet handed the can to the guardian. Miss Elting passed it on to Tommy. Each of the girls drank.

"Where are you, folks?" shouted a boyish voice.

"Here. Just ahead of you," answered Harriet. She had sunk down on the trail, her strength gone. A moment later she was on her feet again, hurrying down the trail to guide the rescuers to the spot.

A tall young fellow clad in khaki, a campaign hat on his head, rushed up. Behind him came half a dozen other young men similarly clad. They were bearing fence rails on their shoulders, fairly staggering under the weight of their burdens.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Miss Elting, now on the verge of tears after the strain. "Who are they, Harriet, my brave girl?"

"We're the Tramp Club," answered the first boy. "We'll introduce ourselves after we get you girls out of the morass. You're in a fine mess and you certainly do need help."