I saved your life yesterday; you might do the same for me
to-day."
But Bob was too convulsed with amusement to offer aid; instead he
stood on a large rock at the roadside and laughed immoderately.
"Pull! Pull!" he cried to Van. "Why don't you pull?"
"I am pulling," Van answered. "But it does no good. I can't budge my
feet. I never saw such mud in all my life. It must be yards deep. It
sucks my boots right off. You'll have to help me."
"Not I! I know too well what would happen. It would be like
Kipling's story of the Elephant's Child. Don't you remember, when
the crocodile let go the nose of the little elephant how he suddenly
sat down _plop_. I've no notion of being pulled into this mud
hole when your rubber boots come to the surface. You'll have to get
yourself out."
"You old heathen! It is not a straight game to fit me out with a
pair of hip rubber boots miles too large for me and then sit and
howl when you see me losing my life in them. Well, you needn't come
into the mire if you don't want to, but you can at least be
gentleman enough to pass me the end of that pole that is lying
beside you," said Van.
"I'll do that."
Bob picked up a long branch from the ground.
"Here!" he cried. "Catch hold of this and pull."
The two boys tugged at opposite ends of the stick.
Then suddenly and quite without warning something happened.
The dead wood parted and Bob hurtled backward off the rock where he
had been standing and landed in a snow-drift; while Van, much to his
astonishment, sat down with abruptness in the wettest of the mud.
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