d of sporting
instinct not to be beaten. He could sit upon the rock as long as his
adversary could sit upon the ground. In a moment of exasperation he had
been upon the point of hurling the turtle into the lake, but had
refrained, and now he was reconciled to a vigil which should last all
night.

Llewellyn had met his match.

For fifty-seven minutes by his watch, Tom waited. Then the tip end of
Llewellyn's nose emerged slowly, cautiously, and remained stationary.

Eleven minutes of tense silence elapsed.

Then the tip end of Llewellyn's nose emerged a trifle more, stopped,
started again and lo, his whole head and neck were out, craned stiffly
upward toward the camp.

Tom did not move a muscle, he hardly breathed. Soon the turtle's tail
was sticking straight out and one forward claw was emerging slowly,
doubtfully.

Silence.

Another claw emerged and the neck relaxed its posture of listening
reconnoissance. Then, presto, Llewellyn was waddling around like a
lumbering old ferry boat and heading straight for the lake. As he
waddled along in a bee line something which Tom had once read came
flashing into his mind, which was that no matter where a turtle is
placed, be it in the middle of the Desert of Sahara, he will travel a
bee line for the nearest water.

But his recollection of this was as nothing to Tom now, when he saw with
mingled feelings of shame and excitement something which seemed to open
a way to the most dramatic possibilities.

As the turtle entered the muddy area near the lake Tom realized, what he
should have known before, that the tracks which Hervey Willetts had
followed from the mountain and which Skinny had followed from the lake
were the tracks of a turtle! _The tracks of a turtle coming from a
locality where it did not belong, straight for the still water which was
its natural element._

With a quick inspiration Tom darted forward into the mud catching the
turtle just as it was waddling into the water. He did not know why he
did this, it was just upon an impulse, and in making the sudden reach he
all but lost his balance. As it was he had to swing both arms to keep
his feet, and as he did so the turtle fell upside down in the drier mud
a few feet back from shore. As Tom lifted it, there, imprinted in the
mud were the letters H. T.

The initials T. H. on the creature's back had been reversed when he fell
upside down. And Tom realized with a thrill that what had just happened
before his e