Uncle
Teddy.

"Quite sure," replied the Captain. "I came up right beside the boat."

"We'll have to mark the spot in some way," said Uncle Teddy, "so we will
know how to avoid it when we are swimming. Let's see, it's right about
in line with those twin pines on the bank and about thirty feet from the
shore. We'll rig up some sort of a floating buoy there and then give the
place a wide berth. It's a good thing it's out of line with our sandy
beach, so it won't interfere with any water sports we may want to have
there."

"Don't look so scared, I'm not drowned," said the Captain to Hinpoha,
who was as pale as a ghost.

"But you might have been," said Hinpoha in an agitated voice. "I thought
I should die until I saw you coming up. I never was so scared."

The Captain began to think it was worth while to go down in a suck hole
to make Hinpoha feel so much concern about him.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he said, "but it really wasn't so terrible
after all. I wasn't very much frightened." Boylike, he must begin to
boast of his exploit in the presence of his feminine friends.

"Please be careful after this," begged Hinpoha. "Those suck holes are
dreadful things. Why, once my cousin----"

But the incident she intended to relate was never told, for just then a
cascade of earth shot by the group on the beach like an express train,
carrying with it something that looked like a pinwheel of waving hands
and feet, all of which grew out of the head of a donkey. The cascade
landed in the water with a mighty splash and from it emerged the forms
of Slim, Katherine and Sandhelo, all looking decidedly astonished and
not quite sure yet what had happened. A fresh hollow at the top of the
hill and a ploughed-up trail of sand all the way down told the story.
The earth had given way up there just as it had with the moose in the
woods, and the three had tobogganed down the steep hillside into the
lake.

"I was sitting up there under that tree, just as politely," explained
Katherine, her cracked voice shattered utterly by the tumble, "feeding
Sandhelo long blades of grass, when Slim came up the path, puffing the
way he always does when he climbs the hill, and sat down beside me to
get his breath before going on to his tent. Pretty soon a spider ran
across his neck and he jumped up and sat down again hard and that time
when he sat down he broke through to China and we all went with him."

"And down there came rockabye baby and all," sang