Читать книгу Westy Martin in the Land of the Purple Sage - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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Westy Martin shrieked in utter panic. Yet he was not an impulsive, much less a cowardly, boy. He was a scout of the scouts who had braved danger, even courted danger. But this sudden scream which he uttered was terrifying even in the echo which reverberated from the wooded height that he had been approaching when this appalling thing happened.

That ghastly counterfeit of his own voice had none of the mellow quality of an echo; it was not softened by distance. So frantic was the boy’s piercing cry of terror that the unspent echo sent back all the sense of maddening fright in undiminished volume on the balmy summer air. It was as if there were two catastrophes.

So sudden and awful was this startling echo from the sombre wall of forest that covered the precipitous side of Storm Cloud Mountain that the man who emerged from the outlandish hovel in the marsh gazed up into those dark heights as if expecting to discover there the cause of the shocking outcry. He even started in that direction in his shambling way. And that was so like the man! Always to start wrong.

Then the frantic boy screamed again, a kind of gurgling scream, and this time there was no echo for there was not sufficient volume to his voice. His mouth was almost level with the green scum and his face was strained upward to avoid it.

Thus, for a few terrifying seconds the sinking victim seemed to pause. Perhaps a rotten log below afforded momentary support. He did not know what was down there—except death.

The boy laid his arms flat upon the surface of the slimy, treacherous thing that was consuming him. No submerged support in that still, green area could serve him long. Then slowly he drew up one arm—a perilous thing to do, if indeed any movement could now retard his ghastly fate, and pulled some of the dripping, green scum out of his mouth so that he might give a last call.

Meanwhile the man started off toward the mountain.

To do him justice, he had not been very near to the scene whence the original cry arose; his hovel was some hundred yards distant. But it was characteristic of him to go the wrong way and in pursuit of nothing.

His bewildered air was not a thing of the moment; he always had it with him. He was so inadequate that, as the saying is, it stuck out all over him. Even in this tragic emergency, a laughable spectacle he presented as he went loping off toward the lower reaches of the frowning mountain.

Yet he meant well, poor man. With nothing but the spirit of succor in his simple mind, he was hastening away from the wretched victim. And his funny, sideways gait seemed to bespeak his inefficiency.

But he did not go far, for Westy, having cleared the loathesome stuff from his mouth, gave a last piercing cry, and the man turned about, bewildered. Then, without any show of emotion he corrected his course and went galloping in his grotesque way toward the scene of impending tragedy.

In his panic fright, the boy watched the man’s approach with a sort of fascinated horror. He could only wonder how this would-be rescuer expected to approach him in that deadly morass.

But the man came on without any sign of panic on his own part, and presented none of the fine appearance of resolute purpose and heroic abandon. There was something reassuring in his steady, albeit ridiculous, progress.

He did not even call. But he did better, for without the slightest hesitation (notwithstanding the terrible warning that the victim presented) he came on, wading through the less perilous edge of the marsh, deeper, deeper. Straight into that deadly area he went toward the sinking victim.

He made a little circuit as he approached, waist deep, as if he knew just where there was unseen support in that horrible, dank place. Yet he was up to his chest in green scum when he came in reach of the boy.

“Can—can you save me!” the wretched victim pleaded as the man reached over and tried to get a hold under the outstretched arms. “It’s—it’s going down—something under me. Quick!”

“Can you move your foot?” the man asked. “See can you push it forard.”

“I can’t move it,” Westy said. “Don’t let me go down—please don’t let me go down!” he begged.

“I wouldn’ leave yer go down,” said the man, tugging at the boy’s body. He succeeded in raising it just an inch or two. “Wriggle yer foot over towards me—what I’m standin’ on. I wouldn’ leave yer go down. Wriggle kinder, then mebbe yer can move it.”

With new hope born of that just inch or two of lifting, Westy tried with all his restricted strength to move his leg in that thick, enveloping substance. He began by wriggling one foot while his rescuer clung desperately to his armpits, striving to raise him if ever so little.

At last, by dint of moving his leg and thus enlarging the area of his confinement, Westy was able to grope a little with his foot until, moving it in the direction of his rescuer, he struck something hard and felt the thrill of real hope as he got a foothold on this unyielding support. And it was none too soon, for whatever uncertain obstacle to his descent had up to now retarded his sinking, it was already giving way under his other foot.

Now his rescue involved only a sideways jerking and hauling to help him onto the real support on which the man stood. And there he was on that solid substance chest deep in the morass and still dreadfully enmeshed, but safe—safe unless another groping step toward more complete safety should treacherously plunge him again into that deadly green hole.

He dared not move, only stood there beside his rescuer in a kind of suppressed hysteria. He was panting, trembling and his head thumped like a trip-hammer. Extrication from this spot of death and sickening stench was still to be gained and peril lurked in one misstep.

But the boy who stood there, appalled and tremulous from his nearness to an awful death, dared take a long, deep breath. The distance to safety seemed nothing now after that slow sinking into the consuming morass. If he had been sitting in his own home he could hardly have felt safer or happier.

Now he was sufficiently composed to greet his rescuer by name. He did not know his real name—no one seemed to know it, but he knew him as Squatter Sam. Some of the less fastidious scouts at camp called him Sloppy Sam. He had little pride and answered willingly to either name.

“Another minute,” Westy panted. “One more minute and I’d have——”

“Yer got swamped certain,” said the man, “but I knowed my way. Now you follow me.”

Westy was too nervous and excited to talk. And he was afraid to move. Standing waist deep on something solid was far better than his recent predicament and he felt inclined to just stand there. Suppose he stepped and stepped off that solid....

“Wait—wait a second,” he shuddered.

Then, fearfully he ploughed his legs through the green scum, each movement disentangling them from the network of slimy undergrowth. With four or five steps of this difficult progress he passed off the solid structure below and shuddered as his feet sank a little in the yielding network of marsh growth.

Evidently the simple man who had rescued him knew what he was about and Westy followed him confidently, plunging with every step and progressing with the greatest difficulty. But slowly the two emerged out of the perilous centre of the morass and were soon plodding knee deep on comparatively safe ground.

“Yer got a good skere, huh?” asked Squatter Sam.

“I sure did,” answered Westy, his terror still lingering, so that he found it difficult to even think. “Gee, I thought I was a goner, sure. I feel sick—I guess it’s that blamed stuff that I got in my mouth. Jiminies, you saved my life, that’s sure. You bet I’ll do something for you if I ever get a chance. I—I guess I’m—I’m kind of all in. How—how did you know there was something solid where you stepped?”

“It was an ole door,” Squatter Sam answered. “Only t’other day I throwed it there. It blowed clean off its hinges in the big storm and I fetched it over and chucked it in the marsh. I cud stand on it when I was ketchin’ bullfrogs. But it got ketched in the weeds when the water riz up in the storm. That there was some wild storm, huh?”

“Well, I’m glad it blew off because it saved my life,” said Westy, as they plodded along, making better progress now toward Squatter Sam’s ramshackle abode.

“I chucked it there when it blowed off,” said Sam; he had a dull way of repeating his remarks. “I fetched it over and chucked it there when it blowed down.”

Yes, he had “fetched it over and chucked it there” instead of putting it back where it belonged. And there you have Squatter Sam all over.