"Somebody hold me or I'll be doing it myself," cried Chunky.

No one paid any attention to the fat boy's remark.

"I can't permit it, Tad," said the Professor, with an emphatic shake of
the head. "No, you could never make it. It would be suicide."

"I'm going to try it," insisted the Pony Rider.

"You most certainly are not."

"But there is little danger. Don't you see I should be floating down
with the current. Almost before I knew it I should be on the other
side of the horseshoe there. Besides you would have hold of the rope."

"Rope?" demanded Dad.

"Yes, of course."

"Where are you going to get ropes? They're all up there on the
mountainside."

"We still have our lassoes."

"Explain. I don't understand," urged Professor Zepplin.

"It is my plan to tie the lassoes together. We have six of them. That
will make nearly two hundred feet. One or two of you can take hold of
the free end of the rope, the other end being about my waist. In case
I should be carried away from the shore, why all you have to do will
be to haul me back. Isn't that a simple proposition?"

"It's a crazy one," nodded the Professor.

"Come to think it over, I believe it could be done," reflected Nance.
"If I could swim at all I'd do it myself, but I'd drown inside of
thirty seconds after I stepped a foot in the water. Why, I nearly
drown every time I wash for breakfast."

Stacy was about to make a remark, but checked himself. It was evidently
not a seemly remark. It must have been more than ordinarily flippant
to have caused Chunky to restrain himself.

"I move we let Tad try it, Professor," proposed Ned.

"I don't approve of it at all. No, sir, I most emphatically do not."

"But surely, Professor, there can be no danger in it at all. It is
very simple," urged young Butler.

Tad knew better. It was not a simple thing to do. It was distinctly a
perilous, if not a foolhardy feat. Nance knew this, too, but he had
grown to feel a great confidence in Tad Butler. He believed that if
anyone could brave those swirling waters and come out alive, that one
was Tad Butler. But it was a desperate chance. Still, with the rope
tied around the lad's waist, it was as the boy had said, they could
haul him back quickly.

"Professor, I am in favor of letting him try it if he is a good
swimmer," announced the guide.

"Pshaw, you couldn't drown Tad," declared Ned.

"No, you couldn't drown Tad," echoed Chunky. "Not any