the
black-eyed girl.

"There's Dave!" cried Mina.

"I knew the two wouldn't be far apart!" sniffed Bess Lavine.

"He's got a boat and is going to Tubby's rescue," cried Grace.

"But see Tubby flounder around!" Frankie observed. "Why! that boy
couldn't sink if you filled his pockets with flatirons!"

"There! he _is_ going under," ejaculated the more timorous Mina.

"Dave will get him, all right," declared Wyn, with confidence.

She and Dave Shepard had been good chums since they were both in
rompers. Her girl friends might tease Wyn sometimes about Dave; but the
girl had no brothers and Dave made up the loss to her in every way.

"Oh! he's going to spear him with that boathook!" gasped Mina again.

And really, it looked so. Tubby Blaisdell was splashing about in the
pool before the canoe landing like a young grampus. Tubby was always
getting into more or less serious predicaments, and he always "lost his
head" and usually had to be aided by his friends.

In this case Dave Shepard prepared to literally spear him in the water.
Dave--who was a tall, athletic boy, with a frank, pleasant face, if
freckled, and close-cut brown curls in profusion--had driven the
flat-bottomed skiff he had obtained from a neighboring landing, across
the pool, and now, standing erect in the boat, with a single lunge
impaled upon the boathook the tail of Tubby's coat.

His chum was going down, as Dave thrust the boathook; for the
unfortunate victim of the accident had swallowed a quantity of water
when he dived with the plank from the eaves of the roof of Canoe Lodge.
There was no time to lose if Dave wished to rescue Tubby before serious
injury resulted to the unfortunate fat youth.

It was something of a feat to bring Tubby Blaisdell alongside the skiff
and haul him inboard without overturning the boat. But Dave accomplished
it to the admiration of the girls--even to Bessie's satisfaction.

"Well, I'm glad he got Tubby out," said that damsel, nodding her head.

"Glad to know that you are so humane, Bess," laughed Frank.

The girls trooped out to learn at closer range if the Blaisdell youth
was really injured or only exhausted.

He lay panting like a big fish in the bottom of the skiff. It was
altogether too cold an evening for him to be exposed in his wet
clothing. When the skiff's nose bumped into the shore, Dave Shepard
leaped out with alacrity and secured the painter to a post.

"Get up out of there, Tubby!" he commanded. "