ed
on the instant that he was _persona non grata_. While one of the other
boys might have been held with some vague idea of being used as a
hostage, this one would make more trouble aboard than on land.

Without a word as to his purpose to his companion, Kit Woodford stooped
over, and with the great strength he possessed, easily lifted the
sleeping boy clear of the deck. Then he cautiously moved to the taffrail,
and with a single toss flung Mike Murphy clear of the launch. And the
water was fifty feet deep, and Mike had never swum a stroke, and there
was no one to go to his help.

CHAPTER XXV

WHAT SAVED MIKE

Let us be just to all. I therefore make haste to say that when Kit
Woodford thus threw Mike Murphy into the Back River he did not doubt for
an instant that he was a swimmer, for whoever heard of a lusty youth
seventeen years old who could not take care of himself in water? Of
course there are such, but they are so few that they are a negligible
number.

Graff Miller was startled when he heard the splash, and turning his head
saw the lad disappear, but his belief was the same as his companion's,
and turning on more power, he shot beyond sight before the lad could come
to the surface.

Now I wish to say further that it is a fact within the knowledge of more
than one that a person who did not know how to swim has, upon being
precipitated into deep water, struck out like a master of the natatorial
art. A father standing on the shore of a lake in northern England saw a
boat upset when a hundred yards off and his little boy flung clear of the
support. The lad had never even tried to swim, but as he was going down
the parent shouted to him:

"If you don't come right to land, I'll whip you within an inch of your
life!"

And the little fellow swam to where the frantic parent awaited him.

Moreover, I once witnessed the same strange occurrence. I was not six
years old when I was waiting at the side of a deep pond, and watching my
brother, four years older, construct a raft, with which he had promised
to come over and take me a-sailing. He put a number of boards loosely
together, and using a shingle for a paddle, worked out from shore and
began making his way toward me, who was in high spirits over the promised
treat.

In the very middle of the pond, where the water was fully twenty feet
deep, the primitive raft began disintegrating. The boards slipped apart,
so that those upon which my brother stood sa