rots, and, once, the distant
yell of a mountain lion.

The tropic sun beat down with ever-increasing intensity as it neared the
zenith, and Bert felt an awful oppression stealing over him. After the
first flush of triumph over cheating the bog, at least temporarily, of
its victim, a rush of doubts and fears came over him. Could the engineer
retain consciousness, immersed as he was in the vile, sticky mud? Would
he not give up, and release his hold on the precious reed? These and a
thousand other misgivings tortured Bert as he watched the reed and waited
for the expected reinforcements. The minutes seemed hours, and when he
looked at his watch he was astonished to find it was not yet noon.

At length his weary vigil was broken by a distant shout, which he
recognized as Tom's. All his fears vanished at the prospect of immediate
action, and he raised a great shout in return. In a few moments he could
hear the noise occasioned by the passage of a considerable body of men,
and soon the rescuing party hove in sight. This consisted of several of
the camp engineers and foremen, together with eight or ten husky
laborers. Everybody, including Tom and Dick, carried shovels and ropes,
and some of the laborers bore long, wide planks on their shoulders.

Dick and Tom rushed forward, followed by the others, but stopped short
when they looked at the treacherous swamp and saw no sign of the
engineer. Their faces paled, and Dick exclaimed, "Too late, are we? We
did our best, but we've got here too late."

Grief was written on every face, but this was soon dispelled when Bert
exclaimed, briskly, "Too late nothing. He's under the swamp, to be sure,
but he's breathing through the reed you see sticking up there," and he
pointed out to them this slender barrier between life and death.

"Well, I'll be hanged," muttered one of the rescuing party, "how in the
world did he ever come to think of that, I wonder?"

"Never mind how I came to think of it!" exclaimed Bert, "the thing is now
to get him out. I've been watching that reed, and I don't believe he's
more than ten inches or a foot below the surface. I feared he'd be a
good deal deeper by this time."

Accordingly the rescuing party fell to with feverish haste, and began
constructing a sort of boxed-in raft about eight feet square. This would
support several people on the shaky surface of the bog, and it would give
them a place to work on while attempting to extract Hartle