ise everybody.
Didn't he slip away early in the spring, and go down to New York? You
watch his smoke, I tell you, Larry. No, Perc ain't giving up till he
has to, and that won't be till the race is run. Just wait!"

"I declare, that's a queer thing to allow!" exclaimed Longley, who had
picked up the glasses and with them swept the surface of the lake, as
well as surveyed the hovering biplane that had walked on the water like
an aquatic bird.

"What now?" asked Mr. Marsh, looking a little nervous.

"Why, see that boat floating out yonder, the plaything of the breeze
that seems to be rising?" asked the other, still using the binoculars.

"I see what you mean," remarked Mr. Marsh, "and it seems to have
drifted away from the shore. Is that some man lying down in it?
There, I saw the object move then. What is it, Longley?"

"A little baby, hardly more," came the startling reply. "Oh! he was
nearly over the side, that time. However in the wide world do you
suppose the child ever came to be in that boat? Here, take a look.
Marsh. Another tilt like that, and the child will be drowned for
certain!"

"Why, it must be Tommy Cragan, the fisherman's baby," said Larry, his
face turning a bit gray with alarm. "I've seen the little shaver
playing around his daddy's boat many a time. It must have floated off;
and now it's away out on the lake, where the water is twenty feet deep!"

"Cracky! that's tough on poor old Cragan, with his wife sick abed!"
groaned the sympathetic Elephant, as he strained his eyes to watch.

"If the child would only remain quiet there would be little danger,"
remarked Mr. Marsh, who was still looking through the glasses, as
though something about the picture fascinated him.

"That's the trouble," remarked his companion, quickly, "the little chap
is getting frightened, or else bolder, for he keeps leaning far over
all the time. Can nothing be done to save the child? If I could swim
I'd take a chance at it myself."

"We could run as fast as anything to Cragan's, sir," declared Elephant,
"or perhaps you could take us in, and we'd show you the way there. He
might have another boat, and would put out to save Tommy."

"I'm afraid that would be too late, good though the intention might
seem," the man said regretfully.

"I can swim like a duck, sir. What's to hinder me jumping in and
trying to get out there to him in time?" demanded Larry, hastening to
start removing his shoes as he spoke.