a breath, and listen," suggested Eben; "who knows now
but what we might be nearer where the balloon dropped than we thought.
P'raps we could even get an answer if we whooped her up a bit."

"How about that, Paul?" demanded Fritz, who could shout louder perhaps
than any other boy in Beverly, and often led the hosts as a cheer
captain, when exciting games were on with other school teams.

"Not a bad idea, I should say," was the reply, as the patrol leader
nodded his head in approval. "Suppose you lead off, Fritz, and let it
be a concerted yell."

Accordingly Fritz marshaled them all in a line, and gave the word. Such
an outbreak as followed awoke the sleeping echoes in the swamp, and sent
a number of startled birds flying madly away. Indeed, Jotham noticed a
rabbit bounding off among the hummocks of higher ground; and Noodles
afterwards declared that he had seen the "cutest little pussycat"
ambling away; though the others vowed it must have been a skunk, and
gave Noodles fair warning that if ever he tried to catch such a cunning
"pussycat" he would be buried up to the neck until his clothes were
fumigated.

"Don't hear any answer, do you, fellers?" remarked Seth, after the
echoes had finally died away again.

Everybody admitted that there seemed to have been no reply to the shout
they had sent booming along.

"Hope we didn't scare him by making such a blooming row," Seth went on
to say.

"I'm bothered more by thinking that he may have been killed, or very
badly hurt when the balloon fell down," Paul ventured to say.

The thought made them all serious again. In imagination they pictured
that valiant fellow who had taken his life in his hands in the interest
of sport, possibly lying there on the ground senseless, or buried in the
slimy mud, which could be seen in so many places all around them. And it
was far from a pleasing prospect that confronted those eight scouts,
though none of them gave any sign of wanting to back out.

"Mebbe a blast from my horn would reach him?" suggested Eben.

"Suppose you try it, eh? Paul?" Fritz remarked.

"No harm can come of it, so pitch in Eben," the other told the troop
bugler.

"And put in all the wind you c'n scrape together," added Seth.

Accordingly Eben blew a blast that could have been heard fully a mile
away. He grew red in the face as he sent out his call; and doubtless
such a sweet medley of sounds had never before been heard in that
desolate looking place since th