Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they had gone
a dozen steps their whole manner changed. Each became eager and alert.
"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol. "What have you seed?"
"Smoke! the smoke of a camp fire and it's on the other side of this neck.
I think it's the camp of Alvarez. He must have been going more slowly than
we thought."
"We'll soon find out," said Shif'less Sol, as they advanced.
But the task was not as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very
low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their feet,
no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when they pulled
them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl perched in a tree,
high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered a
growl.
"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he whispered
to Henry. "I ain't much o' a mud-crawler."
"But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered back, "we'll
have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud."
It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very slowly for
fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach the other side, or
to come near enough to see what might be there.
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