PHILIP'S HUNT 175 



so great. Yet he couldn't help wondering about 

 that loud noise. 



He saw that the place he was in now was not 

 woods, but a meadow, and it looked swampy. He 

 didn't want to go back the way he had come, so he 

 started to go across. The farther he got ahead 

 the harder it was for him to walk with his sore 

 foot. 



In the middle of the swamp the water came up 

 over Philip's boots. He had quite given up trying 

 to keep dry and he stepped in the water as often 

 as he did on the little hard hills of grass. Pretty 

 soon he came to three planks that had been hid 

 like a bridge over the water and from them he got 

 on to drier ground. 



There was something familiar to Philip about 

 that rough bridge, and he saw many yellow flow- 

 ers growing almost in the water, with fine swamp 

 grasses all about them. The minute Philip saw 

 those flowers he knew where he was, for he re- 

 membered that he and Tommy had found them in 

 that very spot a year ago and that later Tommy 

 had read in his books they were called Bulb- 

 bearing Loosestrifes. 



They grew up tall and straight, and their flow- 

 ers were all at the ends of the stems in long narrow 

 bunches something like the way that hyacinths 

 grow. Each little yellow flower had a brownish 

 red center, and its shape was like a wheel. The 

 plants had many leaves, and they were long and 



