Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/158

 the howling means. How Croche and his devils are hustling now!"

A curse was mingled with Neil's breath as he forced his way through the bog. Twenty rods farther on they came to a slime covered bit of water on which was floating a dugout canoe. Immense relief replaced the anxiety in Nathaniel's face as he climbed into it. At that moment he was willing to fight a hundred men for Marion's sake, but snakes and bogs and bloodhounds were entirely outside his pale of argument and he exhibited no hesitation in betraying this fact to his companion. For a quarter of a mile Neil forced the dugout through water viscid with slime and rotted substance before the clearer channel of the creek was reached. As they progressed the stream constantly became deeper and more navigable until it finally began to show signs of a current and a little later, under the powerful impetus of Neil's paddle, the canoe shot from between the dense shores into the open lake. A mile away Nathaniel dis-