Then Jud began to shout instructions: "Little lower, Junior! Get a better
grip before you pull hard, Mickey! Maple is brittle! Easy! It will snap
with you! Kind of roll yourself and turn to let the water in and loosen
the sand. Now roll again! Now pull a little! You're making it! You are out
to your shoulders! Back farther, Junior! Don't you fall in, or you'll both
go down!"
Mickey was very quiet now. His small face was pallid with the terror of
leaving Peaches forever with no provision for her safety. The grip of the
sucking sand was yet pulling at his legs and body; while if the branch
broke he knew what it meant; that sucking, insistent pulling, and caving
away beneath his feet told him. Suddenly Mickey gave up struggling, set
his teeth, and began fighting by instinct. He moved his shoulders gently,
until he let the water flow in, then instead of trying to work his feet he
held them rigid and flattened as he could, and with the upper part of his
body still rolling, he reached higher, and kept inching up the branch as
Junior backed away, until with sickening slowness he at last reached wood
thick as his wrist.
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