. Blame me!
Wish I had a rubber blanket!"

Crossing a log over a slough just before daylight, feeling his way
slowly, yet not daring to stop until he reached some sign of railroad
or clearing, or at least a house or barn, his foot slipped on a log
and down he went into a black pool of mud-encrusted water.

"Ugh--ow-w-w-wh!"

Would his feet _never_ strike bottom? Yes--at last. But the water was up
to his shoulders: the bag, coat and all was partly in the slime that
wrapped him coldly, icily about. Though the night was summery, the chill
of that involuntary bath was unpleasant. More than unpleasant; it was
exhausting, even terrifying. He tried to wade out, but the mire deepened.
He turned and tried to find the log again, but in the darkness all sense
of direction seemed to have left him.

At last, when even Murky's resolution was about to give way to despair,
his outstretched hand touched a limb. Convulsively he grasped it, both
arms going out in eager hope to grasp something tangible amid that inky,
nauseous blackness. As he did so a cry broke from him, for he felt the
bag slipping from his shoulder. He clutched it desperately.

"Oh! Ugh-h! My Gawd!" The cry broke into stranglings as his head went
under. A furious struggle then began, for Murky was not one to give up his
hold on life, or plunder, or anything valuable to him, without fighting.

Somehow he grasped at the unseen limb. It broke just as his weight began
to hang thereon. More splashings, strugglings. He found another limb, all
dead, sooty, yet wet from the now pouring rain.

This one seemed to hold. Inch by inch Murky drew one leg, then the other
from the sucking mud below, but as fast as one leg was released the
other stuck fast again. It was like working in a treadmill, only far
more perilous, fatiguing, and terrible. Would he ever get out--rescue
himself?

After all, love of life was more powerful than money or aught else.

CHAPTER XIII

SEARCHING FOR CLUES

The next morning, though it was still cloudy and rain was falling, Link
was prevailed to return with his team to the place where he had seen the
man with the scowling visage. Meantime Nels Anderson and family had been
made comfortable in a disused cabin in the edge of the village.

Nels, being comparatively useless, also remained. To him later in the day
came Chip Slider, saying:

"I went with them folks and they didn't do nothin' much, except that Paul
picked up a gold piece rig