ured her. "If the whole National Guard of New Jersey comes
here, with a truckload of shooting-warrants, they aren't going to get
Laddie. I promise you that. I don't quite know how we are going to
prevent it. But we're going to. That's a pledge. So you're not to
worry."

As they talked they continued to watch the constable in his clumping
exit from the Place. Wefers reached the dock, and stamped out to its
extreme end, where was moored the livery scow he had commandeered for
his journey across the lake from the village.

A light wind was blowing. It had caught the scow's wide stern and had
swung it out from the dock. Wefers unhooked the chain and dropped it
clankingly into the bottom. Then, with ponderous uncertainty, he
stepped from the dock's string-piece to the prow of his boat.

A whiff of breeze slapped the loosened scow, broadside on, and sent it
drifting an inch or two away. As a result, Homer Wefers' large
shoe-sole was planted on the edge of the prow, instead of its center.
His sole was slippery from the dew of the lawn. The prow's edge was
still more slippery, from having been 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 from its precarious perch, pushing the boat
farther into the lake. And the dignified officer flapped wildly in
mid-air.

Not being built on a lighter-than-air principle, he failed to hold this
undignified aerial pose for more than the tenth of a second. At the end
of that time he plunged splashingly into the lake, at a depth of
something like eight feet of water.

"Good!" applauded the Master, as the Mistress gasped aloud in not
wholly sorrowful surprise and as Lad ambled gayly down the lawn for a
closer view of this highly diverting sight. "Good! I hope he ruins
every stitch he has on; and then gets rheumatism and tonsilitis. He--"

The Master's babbling jaw fell slack; and the pleased grin faded from
his face.

Wefers had come to the surface, after his ducking. He was fully three
yards beyond the dock and as far from his drifting scow. And he was
doing all manner of sensational things with his lanky arms and legs and
body. In brief, he was doing everything except swim.

It was this phenomenon which had wiped away the Master's grin of pure
happiness.

Any man may fall into the water, and may present a most ludicrous
spectacle in doing so. But, on the instant he comes to the surface, his
very