When Tom Walker takes a short cut home, his trek leads him through the swamp and he encounters a number of obstacles and frightening sights and sounds.

This shortcut of Walker is, in reality, an "ill-chosen route." This swamp area is overgrown and dark even in the middle of the day. There are vines and muck and "gloomy pines and hemlocks," some of which rise more than ninety feet into the air. Naturally, the surface of this swamp is treacherous as there is little solid ground. Worse than this, there are quagmires, some of which are disguised by a surface of moss and weeds that belie its black "smothering mud" that pulls a man's foot into its trapping grip. In addition, there are dangerous sloughs where there are treacherous snakes and even alligators, who lurk in the mire.

As Tom endeavors to pick his way carefully through this dangerous environment, he is also startled by the screaming of such birds as the bittern, a large marsh bird of the heron family, and the quacking of wild ducks. Finally, Tom Walker reaches dry land and nears an old fort, a location in sharp contrast to the swamp he just left. There he stops to rest.