he donkey's
hoofs used to patter so loudly over the frozen ground, while now--

Perhaps it was very childish, for Dick was a strongly built lad of
sixteen, and had his memory served him truly it would have reminded him
of that terrible kick in the leg which lamed him for a month--of the
black-and-yellow bruise upon his arm made by the vicious animal's jaws
one day when he bit fiercely--of that day when he was pitched over
Solomon's head into the black bog ditch, and had to swim out--of a dozen
mishaps and injuries received from the obstinate beast. But Dick
thought of none of these, only of the pleasant days he had had with the
animal he had known ever since he could run; and, whether it were
childish or not, the tears rose and dimmed his eyes as he stood there
gazing at what seemed to be the animal's dying struggles, and thinking
that it would be kinder to let him drown than to strangle him, as he
felt sure they would.

"Why don't you throw, Dick?" cried Tom again in an excited yell that was
half drowned by Solomon's discordant bray, though it was growing more
feeble as the struggles were certainly more weak.

All at once Dick started and his eyes grew more clear. It was not at
the warning shout of the wheelwright, nor the yell uttered by the other
men, but at the action of the sufferer in the bog. For, feeling himself
surely and certainly sinking lower, the donkey made one more tremendous
effort, extricating his fore-legs and beating the fluid peat with them
till it grew thinner, and with neck outstretched and mouth open it sank
more and more back, till head and legs only could be seen.

Dick did it unconsciously. His eyes were fixed upon the struggling
beast, but his ears were deaf to the shouts behind him. All he heard
was the dismal bray enfeebled to a groan so full of despair that the lad
threw the rope, and in throwing lost his balance, fell, and the next
moment was struggling in the mire.

He tried to rise, but it was impossible, and as he fought and struggled
for a few moments it was to find that the bog was growing thinner and
that the patches about him, which looked firm, were beginning to sink.

Was he too going to drown? he asked himself, and something of the
sensation he had felt on the night of the flood came over him.

Then he felt a snatch, and a voice like thunder brought him to himself.

"Howd tight, lad!"

The next moment Dick felt himself gliding over the soft bog, and
directly after