ts
course.

Helpless, but not silent. Beholding the fate that was inevitable, the
colonel gave utterance to a wild roar of despair, which, together with
the rumbling of the wheels above his head, drove forth his dog from his
hiding-place. Caesar, espying this new and extraordinary object rattling
down the board walk, and mindful of the agonizing shrieks of his master,
himself pursued the flying wheel, yelping and barking and adding his
voice to that of Colonel Witham.

There was no escape. The heavy wheel, bearing its ponderous weight of
misery, and pursued to the very edge of the float by the dog, plunged
off into the water with a mighty splash. Colonel Witham, clinging in
desperation to the handle bars, sank with the wheel in some seven feet
of water. Then, amid a whirl and bubbling of the water like a boiling
spring, the colonel's head appeared once more above the surface. Choking
and sputtering, he cried for help.

"Help! help!" he roared. "I'm drowning. I can't swim."

"No, but you'll float," bawled Little Tim, who was darting into the shed
for a rope.

Indeed, as the colonel soon discovered, now that he was once more at the
surface, it seemed really impossible for him to sink. He turned on his
back and floated like a whale.

And at this moment, most opportunely, there appeared up the road the
line of bicyclists returning.

They were down at the shore shortly--Tom Harris, Bob White, George,
Arthur and Joe Warren--just as Little Tim emerged from the shed, with an
armful of rope.

"Here, you catch hold," he said, "while I make fast to the colonel." The
next moment, he was overboard, swimming alongside Colonel Witham.

"Look out he don't grab you and drown you both," called George Warren.

Little Tim was too much of a fish in the water to be caught that way.
The most available part of Colonel Witham to make fast to, as he floated
at length, was his nearest foot. Tim Reardon threw a loop about that
foot, then the other; and the boys ashore hauled lustily.

The colonel, more than ever resembling a whale--but a live one, inasmuch
as he continued to bellow helplessly--came slowly in, and stranded on
the shore. They drew him well in with a final tug.

"Here, quit that," he gurgled. "Want to drag me down the road?" The
colonel struggled to his feet, his face purple with anger.

"Now get out of here, all of you!" he roared. "There's always trouble
when you're around. Tim Reardon, you keep away from here, do y