p in the boat and scanning the surface, including the nearest shore--
that on our left, where the trees came right down to the water.

They stopped together, and let the boat drift slowly with the current
downward and backward, till all at once there was a light puff of hot
wind which filled the sail, and we mastered the current, once more
gliding slowly up stream, with the water pattering against the sides and
bows.

But there was no sign of Pete, and having failed to take any bearings,
or to remember by marks on the shore whereabouts he had gone down, we
were quite at fault, so that when the wind failed again and the boat
drifted back, it was impossible to say where we had seen the last of the
poor lad.

I felt choking. Something seemed to rise in my throat, and I could only
sit there dumb and motionless, till all at once, as the wind sprang up
again, filled the sail, and the boat heeled over, the necessity of doing
something to steer her and keep her in the right direction sent a thrill
through me, and I did what I ought to have done before.

For, as the water rattled again under the bows and we glided on, I
shouted aloud--

"Pete, lad, where are you?"

"Ahoy!" came from a distance higher up, farther than we could have
deemed possible after so much sailing.

"Hooray!" shouted the carpenter. "Why he's got ashore yonder."

"Where did the hail come from, Nat?" said my uncle, with a sigh of
relief.

"Seemed to be from among the trees a hundred yards forward there to the
left."

"Run her close in, then, and hail, my lad," he cried.

He had hardly spoken before the wind failed again, and they bent to
their oars.

"Where are you, Pete?" I shouted.

"Here, among the trees," came back, and I steered the boat in the
direction, eagerly searching the great green wall of verdure, but seeing
nothing save a bird or two.

"Are you ashore?" I shouted.

"Nay! It's all water underneath me. Come on, sir. Here I am."

A few more strokes of the oars ran us close in beneath the pendent
boughs, and the next minute the carpenter caught hold of one of the
overhanging branches and kept the boat there, while Pete descended from
where he had climbed, to lower himself into the boat and sit down
shivering and dripping.

"Thought he'd got me, sir," he said, looking white. "I dived down,
though, and only come up once, but dove again so as to come up under the
trees; and then I found a place where I could pull myself up