poor calf, Russ?" asked Rose.

She seemed to think that her brother would think up some way of helping
the mired creature. No knowing how long Tad would be in finding the
owner, and it looked as though the calf was sinking all the time.

Russ Bunker had quite an inventive mind. The other children were
helpless in this emergency, but he began to see how he could help the
calf stuck in the muddy swamp. He ran to the roadside fence, which was a
good deal broken down just at the edge of the open swamp lands. The
fence rails were so old and dry that Russ could pull them, one at a
time, away from the posts. He dragged the first one to the spot where
the calf was blatting so pitifully. Although these cedar rails had been
split out of logs many years before, they were still very strong.

"Come on, Rose! You can help drag these rails too," cried Russ, quite
excited by the thought that he might be able to save the calf before Tad
Munson brought help.

"Oh! what are you going to do? Are you going to burn that poor calf like
the Indians used to burn folks?" asked Vi, who remembered something she
had heard at Uncle Fred's ranch. "You going to burn the calf at the
stake?"

This was a horrifying thought, but even Laddie, who was very
tender-hearted, was too much excited to think of this. He said to his
twin sister:

"How silly, Vi! You couldn't burn those old rails on that wet place. The
fire would go right out."

"Russ won't burn it, or let it drown either," Margy said, with much
confidence in their older brother.

Meanwhile Russ and Rose were pulling off fence-rails and dragging them
to the edge of the swamp. Then, while Rose brought more, Russ began to
lay the rails on the quivering mire, side by side but about a foot
apart, the ends of the first row of rails being only a few inches from
the side of the calf.

Having made a foundation of four rails upon the soft muck, Russ began to
lay the next tier across them, thus building a platform. It was a shaky
platform, but he crept out upon it slowly and carefully and the lower
rails did not sink much.

"Won't you sink down in the mud, too, if you do that, Russ?" asked Vi
curiously. "Won't those old rails get splinters in your hands?"

"Oh!" cried Laddie, jumping up and down in his excitement, "then you'll
be the riddle, Russ. 'I went out to the woodpile and got it'--you know."

"Maybe it's a riddle--what I'm going to do for the poor calf when I can
reach him," their brothe