n the legs, but that did not prevent him from running this
way and that to try and find some place in the woods with which he was
familiar. Before long he heard what he thought was something splashing
in water, and, making his way toward the sound, he pushed out on the
bank of Crooked Creek.

The creek was quite wide at this point, and out near the middle of it he
saw Tony's head. The turkey-hunter was swimming hand-overhand,
"dog-fashion," for the shore. Behind him was a boat, upside-down, which
seemed just on the point of sinking out of sight.

"Hel-low, there!" cried Harry; "what's the matter, Tony?"

Tony never answered a word, but spluttered and puffed, and struck out
slowly but vigorously for the bank.

"Wait a minute," cried Harry, wildly excited, "I'll reach you a pole."

But Tony did not wait, and Harry could find no pole. When he turned
around from his hurried search among the bushes, the turkey-hunter had
found bottom, and was standing with his head out of water. But the
bottom was soft and muddy, and he flopped about dolefully when he
attempted to walk to the bank. Harry reached his gun out toward him, but
Tony, with a quick jerk of his arm, motioned it away.

"I'd rather be drownded than shot," he spluttered. "I don't want no
gun-muzzles pinted at me. Take a-hold of that little tree, and then
reach me your hand."

Harry seized a young tree that grew on the very edge of the bank, and as
soon as Tony managed to flop himself near enough, Harry leaned over and
took hold of his outstretched hand and gave him a jerk forward with all
his strength. Over went Tony, splash on his face in the water, and Harry
came very near going in head-foremost on top of him. But he recovered
himself, and, not having loosed his grip of Tony's hand, he succeeded,
with a mighty effort, in dragging the turkey-hunter's head out of the
water; and, after a desperate struggle with the mud, Tony managed to get
on his feet again.

"I don't know," said he, blowing the water out of his mouth and shaking
his dripping head, "but what I'd 'most as lieve be shot as ducked that
way. Don't you jerk so hard again. Hold steady, and let me pull."

Harry took a still firmer grasp of the tree and "held steady," while
Tony gradually worked his feet through the sticky mud until he reached
the bank, and then he laboriously clambered on shore.

"How did it happen?" said Harry. "How did you get in the water?"

"Boat upsot," said Tony, seating hims