Impetuous Bandy-legs was about to instantly start forward when Max
gripped him by the arm.

"Don't be foolish, Bandy-legs," he told the other, severely. "You'd only
get yourself in the same boat, if you stood there and tried to drag
Steve out; and two would be harder to take care of than one."

"But say, don't be _too_ slow about starting something, will you?"
urged Steve, once again looking nervous. "Why, I'm sinking right along,
I tell you. Every time I try to get one foot up t' other goes down three
inches further, because I have to bear all my weight on it. This is no
laughing matter, boys. I'll be swallowed up before your eyes soon if you
don't get busy. Max, you ought to know how to extricate a fellow from
the quicksand!"

"There are lots of ways in which it can be done," the other told him,
meanwhile measuring distances with his eye, as though he already had a
plan in mind. "If when you first discovered that you were sinking you
had thrown yourself sideways, and started to crawl or roll, regardless
of how wet you got, you might have made it, for in that way you'd have
presented more of your body to the action of the sand. Then a mattress
could be made from branches, weeds or any old thing, that would bear the
weight of one or two of us. But I've got even a better scheme than that
to work."

"Please hurry!" pleaded the imprisoned boy.

"Keep cool, Steve," advised Max, "because there's positively no danger,
now that we're on deck."