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.