a mile of mud to get them."

"I wondered how Neddy got so muddy. I was so glad to see him that I
just hugged him, and now I ought to be in a wash-tub. Just look at
me."

Dick obeyed her so literally that she added a moment later:

"I mean look at the mud on my dress."

The broiled snappers were pronounced the finest fish ever served,
the palmetto cabbage better than cauliflower, and then the girl
asked:

"This white meat is pretty good. What is it?"

"Alligator."

"Really?"

"Really and truly. You said you liked it."

"I didn't know it was a reptile. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't
have eaten it if I had known."

"Ned wouldn't have liked it if I had told. He is my doctor, you
know, and I have to mind him."

"You don't need a doctor any more. What you want is a nurse."

"That's so. I could mind her easy," said Dick.

"Oh, I meant a man nurse," said the girl.

Ned produced some joints of sugar-cane for dessert, and made a can
of after-dinner sweet-bay tea, and then began to ask questions.

"Daddy, I want to find out whether you and Molly are crazy or
whether I am. You never saw Dick before. You said so half an hour
ago. Dick never saw you or Molly. He said so half an hour ago--"

"But Ned--" interrupted Dick.

"You keep still. I've got the floor. Now, Dad, you and Molly rush up
to this chap, whom you never saw before, and fall into his arms--"

"Neddy Barstow, I didn't do anything of the kind. But I had seen him
and I did know him," said the girl.

"Now, there you go. How ever did you know this chum of mine, who
never saw you?"

"How did Dick save your life, Ned?" asked Mr. Barstow in a voice
that wasn't quite as steady as usual.

"I can tell you," broke in Dick. "He didn't do it at all. That's
how."

"Dad, when our canoe was wrecked, we lost the beautifullest skin of
the biggest kind of a panther--eight feet from tip to tip. Dick saw
the panther first, when he was ten feet from us, ready to jump. I
fired at the beast, and he sprang for me, but Dick jumped at the
same time and got between us, so the panther landed on him and I was
saved. That's why he is sick now. I s'pose that is what knocked his
memory endwise, so he don't remember anything about it."

"Mr. Barstow," said Dick, "I wish you would ask Ned who it was that
swam ashore with me when the big tarpon smashed the canoe and
knocked me out. Yes, and he almost lost his own life in saving mine.
Please ask him. I want to see if he h