and then, with much pain and difficulty, get swayingly to his
feet.

"Don't worry, old chap," Gavin said to the growling collie.
"He's had all he can carry, for one day. He's not going to
follow us. By this time, he'll begin to realize, too, that
his face is battered pretty much to a pulp, and that some of
my body-smashes are flowering into bruises. I pity him when
he wakes up to-morrow. He'll be too stiff to move an inch,
without grunting. His pluck and his nerve are no match for
his strength .... Here we are!" he broke off, beginning to
skirt the hither edge of the swamp. "Unless all my dope is
wrong, it ought to be somewhere close to this."

He walked more slowly, his keen eyes busily probing the
impenetrable face of the swamp. He was practically at the
very end of the beach. In front, the mangroves ran out into
the water, and in an unbroken line they extended far back to
landward.

The shining dark leaves made a thick screen, shutting from
view the interior of the swamp. The reddish roots formed an
equally impenetrable fence, two feet high, all along the edge.
It would have been easier to walk through a hedge of bayonets
than to invade that barrier.

"Where mangroves grow, puppy," exhorted Brice, "there is
water. Salt water, at that. The water runs in far, here.
You can see that, by the depth of this mangrove forest. At
first glance, it looks like an impasse, doesn't it? And yet