The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-06-21

aged at last. She didn't seem to know
Whist wanted her TO do. Yet while an
, er / stopped talking altogether, she tool
ub the cap and went OF twenty on thirty
|, rods. There she left 1t and went to thl
rick. / heard her barking again; but sh'
! soofi, stopped.
/ was now too low in the mtid to sex
where she went, hut she did not come bach
to me. / supposed she had run off some
where and left me-"
4 Ed had sunk over his shoulders
though his arms were raised as high as his
head. The cold, black mud oozed round
his neck.
/ aIsseemsd Is If two cold, black hands
4 had taken me b. the throat" he said,
!. and were Just beginning to choke me to
Then he gave Up iii hope, and with
/ thai Indian like stoicism born Of life In
the woods, resigned himself to die, like
the brave lad he was, without . tear or an
outcry.
III supposed it wouldn't take more than
five minutes, anyway, AMER my head went
| undSt the mud, for 1t to smother me. un-
lees my gufi waS foHnd / kdew tflat my
! folks would never know Whist had become
of mo. I should keep sinking until was
so far bcneatf the surface that my body
would never Be f0uhd."
| The mire rose above his chin, bit by
throwing back his head and drVwing down
one hand, lie managed to push it from his
mouth and nose He said that now many
strange things occurred. Psychologists will
| set them down, no doubt, to exaltation of
the senses, but they are more likely to have
been caused by an overweight imagina.
| tion.
EyGry few minutes lie declared that he
Gould feel slight trehiors Of the whole bog.
He could hear people taking in ordinary
conversation at the clearings and farms
| miles away; and not only this. but he de-
clared that he heard the dinner-horns,
scores of them everywhere, calling the
farmers to dinner. and the noon whistles
and bells in Bangor, fifty miles off.
If the people could only have heard
me as heard them," he said, II could
have whispered. and they would have come
to my help"
What is, perhaps, less strange, he as
serts that he heard the steps and voices of
the two men who rescued him when they
first stepped upon tile bog, almost mile
below the spot where he was imprisoned,
and knew the men were coming to help
him.
BY this time the mud had so compressed
his chest that he could not speak loud
enough to be heard more than hundred
feet. Just at this time he says that he felt
tueerly; was in a ha1f-stupid state, posi-.
bly, sort of lethargy, and did not care
much whether they fotind him OF not.
1t seems that the dog, after barking at
the otter, again took up the cap and went
with it to a clearing that was between
three and four miles to the southwark of
the bog. A settler, named Jarvis, was at
work there piling logs:
An Indian, who had been hunting in the
adjoining woods, was talking with Jarvis
when Lii came to them with the cap in
her mouth.
Jarvis at once said: "That is I'D Mar.
tins dog" and called her to them. The
dog dropped the cap, and began to roll
over, and fawn and gambol. Jarvis sup
posed it was an old cap that the dog had
foufid, but the Indian said There be
hurt-somebody.
Then they both set off in the direction
the dog had come. Lill kept with them,
running ahead and, after manner, lead
ing the way.
When they came near the imprisoned
boy, the dog ran directly to the rick where
she had driven the otter.
fully about, saw Eds head in the slough.
They seized logs and brush off the rick,
and, throwing these on the mud, stepped
out upon them and caught the poor fel.
lows upstretched hands. But they could
no more pull him up than they could have
raised mountain. :
1t was only by stirring the muck round
him, and thus breaking the suction, that
they were at length able to rescue him
from the death grasp of the slough.
After his shoulders were out he rose
with rather less difficulty, but he left his
boots in the depths below. His legs and
feet were numb, he could not stand, and
could scarcely speak. Ten minutes more
and he would have been under the mire
and smothered. g. a. Stephens, in YOUTHS
n.