nging at his face with
bared teeth.

Suddenly the end came: Salzar's body heaved upward, sprawled for an
instant in the dazzling glare, hurtled over Smith's head and fell into
the sink with a crashing splash.

Frantically he thrashed there, spattering and floundering in darkness.
He made no outcry. Probably he had landed head first.

In a moment only a vague heaving came from the unseen ooze.

Smith, exhausted, drenched with sweat, leaned against a tamarack,
sickened.

After all sound had ceased he straightened up with an effort. Presently
he bent and recovered Salzar's red bandana and his hat, lifted his own
rifle and pack and struggled into the harness. Then, kicking Salzar's
rifle overboard, he unfastened both torches, pocketed one, and started
on in a flood of ghostly light.

He was shaking all over and the torch quivered in his hand. He had seen
men die in the Great War. He had been near death himself. But never
before had he been near death in so horrible a form. The sodden noises
in the mud, the deadened flopping of the sinking body -- mud-plastered
hands beating frantically on mud, splattering, agonising in darkness --
"My God," he breathed, "anything but that -- anything but that! ----"

* * * * *

II

Before midnight he struck the hard forest. Here there was no trail at
all, only spreading outcrop of crock under dying leaves.

He could see a few stars. Cautiously he ventured to shine his compass
close to the ground. He was still headed right. The ghastly sink
country lay behind him.

About of him, somewhere in the darkness -- but how far he did not know
-- Quintana and his people were moving swiftly at Clinch's Dump.

It may have been an hour later -- two hours, perhaps -- when from far
ahead in the forest came a sound -- the faint clink of a shod heel on
rock.

Now, Smith unslung his pack, placed it between two rocks where laurel
grew.

Salzar's red bandanna was still wet, but he tied it across his face,
leaving his eyes exposed. The dead man's hat fitted him. His own hat
and the extra torch he dropped into his basket-pack.

Ready, now, he moved swiftly forward, trailing his rifle. And very soon
it became plain to him that the people ahead were moving without much
caution, evidently fearing no unfriendly ear or eye in that section of
the wilderness.

Smith could hear their tread on rock and root and rotten branch, or
swishing through frosted fern and brake, or louder on new