really come that way.

By slow degrees the nature of the bog changed. One might not notice
that his surroundings had become less promising, and that the surface
of the ooze, green though it was, would prove a delusion and a snare if
stepped on, allowing the foot to sink many inches in the sticky mass.

In numerous places they could see where the boys ahead of them had
missed the trail, though always managing to regain the more solid
ground.

"It's getting a whole lot spooky in here, let me tell you!" admitted
Felix, after they had been progressing for some time.

"But it's entirely different from a real swamp, you see," remarked
Josh; "I've been in a big one and I know."

"How about that, Josh; wouldn't you call a bog a swamp, too?" asked
George.

"Not much I wouldn't," was the reply. "A swamp is always where there
are dense trees, hanging vines and water. It's a terribly gloomy place
even in the middle of the day, and you're apt to run across snakes, and
all sorts of things like that."

"Well, we haven't seen a single snake so far," admitted Horace. "I'm
glad, too, because I never did like the things. This isn't so very
gloomy, when you come to look around you, but I'd call it just
desolate, and let it go at that."

"Black mud everywhere, though it's nearly always covered with a
deceptive green scum," remarked Josh, "with here and there puddles of
water where the frogs live and squawk the live-long day."

"I wonder how deep that mud is anyhow?" speculated George.

"Suppose you get a pole and try while we're resting here," suggested
Josh, with a wink at the scout next to him.

George thereupon looked around, and seeing a pole which Mr. Henderson
may have placed there at some previous time he started to push it into
the bog.

"What d'ye think of that, fellows?" he exclaimed, in dismay when he had
rammed the seven foot pole down until three fourths of its length had
vanished in the unfathomable depths of soft muck.

"Why, seems as if there wasn't any bottom at all to the thing," said
Felix.

"Of course there is a bottom," remarked the naturalist, who had been
watching the boys curiously; "but in some places I've been unable to
reach it with the longest pole I could manage."

"Have we passed that dangerous place you were telling us about, sir?"
asked Mr. Witherspoon.

"No, it is still some little distance ahead," came the reply.

"If it's much worse than right here I wouldn't give five cents for
thei