Episode Five: Drowned Valley Chapter 2

"Where's my packet, eh?" inquired Quintana.

"Jake's got it." Leverett's voice was growing stronger. His small eyes switched for an instant toward his rifle, where it stood against a tree behind Quintana.

"Where is he, then, this Jake?" repeated Quintana impatiently.

"He got bogged."

"Bogged? What is that, then?"

"He got into a sink-hole."

"What!"

"That's all I know," said Leverett, sullenly. "Him and me was travellin' hell-bent to meet up with you, -- Jake, he was for a short cut to Drowned Valley, -- but 'no,' sez I, sink-holes into the woods----'"

"What is it the talk you talk to me?" asked Quintana, whose perplexed features began to darken. "Where is it, my packet?"

"I'm tellin' you, ain't I?" retorted the other, raising a voice now shrill with the strain of this new crisis rushing so unexpectedly upon him: "I heard Jake give a holler. `What the hell's the trouble?' I yells. Then he lets out a beller, `Save me!' he screeches, `I'm into a sink-hole! The quicksand's got me,' sez he. So I drop my rifle, I did, -- there she stands against that birch sapling! -- and I run down into them there pitcher-plants.

"`Whar be ye!' I yells. Then I listens, and don't hear nothin' only a kina wallerin' noise an' a slobber like he was gulpin' mud.