"We get used to it on Beaver
Island. They're just about at the place where they tore little Jim
Schredder to pieces a few weeks back. Schredder tried to kill one of the
elders for stealing his wife while he was away on a night's fishing
trip."
He plunged to his knees in the bog.
"They caught him just before he reached the swamp," he flung back over
his shoulder. "Two minutes more and he would have been safe."
Nathaniel, sinking to his knees in the mire, forged up beside him.
"Lord!" he exclaimed, as a breath of air brought a sudden burst of
blood-curdling cries to them. "If they'd loosed them on us sooner--"
He shivered at the terrible grimace Neil turned on him.
"Had they slipped the leashes when we escaped, we would have been with
poor Schredder now, Captain Plum. By the way--" he stopped a moment to
wipe the water and mud from his face, "--three days after they covered
Schredder's bones with muck out there, the elder took Schredder's wife!
She was too pretty for a fisherman." He started on, but halted suddenly
with uplifted hand. No longer could they hear the baying of the dogs.
"They've struck the creek!" said Neil. "Listen!"
After an interval of silence there came a long mournful howl.
"Treed--treed or in the water, that's what 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.
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