“What on earth have you got?” I exclaimed, approaching as near as I could, “and how did you get out there?”

“Don’t you come any closer!” she cried.  “You’ll sink up to your waist!  I got here by treading on the little hummocks and holding on to that dead branch; but don’t you take hold of it, for you’ll break it off, and then I can’t get back.”

“But what is that thing?” I repeated.

“It’s a young pelican,” she replied.  “I found a lot of nests on the ground over there, and this was in one of them.  I chased it all about, until it flopped out here and hid itself on the other side of this tree.  Then I came out quietly and caught it.  But how am I going to get it to you?”

This seemed, indeed, a problem.  Euphemia declared that she needed both hands to work her way back by the means of the long, horizontal limb which had assisted her passage to the place where she sat, and she also needed both hands to hold her prize.  It was likewise plain that I could not get to her.  Indeed, I could not see how her light steps had taken her over the soft and marshy ground that lay between us.  I suggested that she should throw the pelican to me.  This she declined to do.

“I could never throw it so far,” she said, “and it would surely get away.  I don’t want to lose this pelican, for I believe it is the last one on the island.  If there are other young ones, they have scuttled off by this time, and I should dreadfully hate to go back to the yacht without any pelican at all.”

“I don’t call that much of one,” I said.

“It’s a real pelican for all that,” she replied, “and about as curious a bird as I ever saw.  Its wings won’t stretch out seven feet, to be sure.”

“About seven inches,” I suggested.

“But it is a great deal easier to carry a young one like this,” she persisted, “and I expect a baby pelican is a much more uncommon sight in the North than a grown one.”

“No doubt of it,” I said.  “We must keep him now you’ve got him.  Can’t you kill him?”

“I’ve no way of killing him,” returned Euphemia.  “I wonder if you could shoot him if I were to hold him out.”

This, with a shot-gun, I positively declined to do.  Even if I had had a rifle, I suggested that she might swerve.  For a few moments we remained nonplussed.  I could not get to Euphemia at all, and she could not get to me unless she released her bird, and this she was determined not to do.

“Euphemia,” I said, presently, “the ground seems hard a little way in front of you.  If you step over there, I will go out on this strip, which seems pretty solid.  Then I’ll be near enough to you for you to swing the bird to me, and I’ll catch hold of him.”

Euphemia arose and did as I told her, and we soon found ourselves about six feet apart.  She took the bird by one leg and swung it toward me.  With outstretched arm I caught it by the other foot, but as I did so I noticed that Euphemia was growing shorter, and also felt myself sinking in the bog.  Instantly I entreated Euphemia to stand perfectly still, for, if we struggled or moved, there was no knowing into what more dreadful depths we might get.  Euphemia obeyed me, and stood quite still, but I could feel that she clutched the pelican with desperate vigor.