Part 5 (1/2)

A whiff of breeze slapped the loosened scow, broadside on, and sent it drifting an inch or tay As a result, Hoe of the prow, instead of its center

His sole was slippery froe was stillbeen the scene of a recent fish-cleaning

The constable's gangling body strove in vain to hold any semblance of balance His foot slid out fro the boat farther into the lake And the dignified officer flapped wildly in hter-than-air principle, he failed to hold this undignified aerial pose for more than the tenth of a second At the end of that tily into the lake, at a depth of soht feet of water

”Good!” applauded the Master, as the Mistress gasped aloud in not wholly sorrowful surprise and as Lad ahly diverting sight ”Good! I hope he ruins every stitch he has on; and then gets rheu jaw fell slack; and the pleased grin faded from his face

Wefers had co He was fully three yards beyond the dock and as far fro all s and body In brief, he was doing everything except swim

It was this phenorin of pure happiness

Any man may fall into the water, andso But, on the instant he comes to the surface, his very first motions will shohether or not he is a swimmer It had not occurred to the Master that anyone reared in the North Jersey lake-country should not have at least enough knowledge of swi to carry him a few yards But, even as many sailors cannot swiht up within sight of fresh water, has never taken the trouble to grasp the simplest rudiments of natation And such a man, very evidently, was Homer Wefers, Townshi+p Head Constable

His howl of crass panic was not needed to prove this to the Master His every wild antic showed it But that same terror-stricken screech was required to set forth the true situation to the one e by sound and by scent, rather than by race, the Master yanked off his own coat and waistcoat, and bent to unstrap his hiking boots He did not relish the prospect of a wetting, for thefrom death this atrocious trespasser He knew the er And he was notoff his own outer garments with any melodramatic haste

As he undid the first boot-latchet, he felt the Mistress's tense fingers on his shoulder

”Wait!” she exhorted

Astounded at this cold-blooded counsel from his tender-hearted wife, he looked up, and followed the direction of her eagerly pointing hand

”Look!” she was exulting ”It'll all solve itself! See if it doesn't

Look! He can't shoot Laddie, after--after--”

The Master was barely in ti the dock with express-train speed and spring far out into the lake

The dog struck water, a bare ten inches fro head The constable, in his crazy panic, flung both bony arether disappeared under the surface, in a swirl of churned foam

The Mistress cried aloud, at this hideous turn her pretty plan had taken The Master, one shoe off and one shoe on, hobbled at top pace toward the dock

As he reached the foot of the lawn, Lad's head and shoulders ca bodies' suction

And, at the same h the eddy Thein a way that turned the lake around him into a white maelstrom

As the Master set foot on the dock he saw the Collie rush forith an iany shoulders far out of water

Striking with brilliant accuracy, the dog avoided Wefers' flailing ar teeth into the back of the drowning ing aric hold; and heof the unwieldy body made both heads vanish under water, for a bare half-second, as the Master poised hi-piece for a dive But the dive was not made