began rowing toward the
bobbing head. Old Jack could swim well, it seemed, in spite of his age.
The water was warm, and it was broad daylight, so he was in
comparatively little danger--except from sharks and from the fact that
he had on his clothes, which would soon become soaked and hamper him.

But no sharks appeared; that menacing triangular fin which marks them
was not seen cutting the water, and no big twelve-foot man-eater was
observed to turn on his back in order to bring his curious, under-shot
mouth with its rows of keen teeth to bear on poor Jack Jepson.

If a shark had appeared, it would probably have put an end to the plans
of Mr. Pertell to have his company give an idea of shipwreck by leaping
into the water. No one would have jumped into those waters had they been
shark-infested. But, as I have said, none of the tigers of the deep
showed, and, a little later, Jack was being lifted into the small boat.
They had reached him just when his strength was about exhausted.

"Oh, have they saved him?" asked Miss Pennington, coming on deck very
pale. Alice said afterward she had not had time to put on her "war
paint."

"I--I can't bear to look!" faltered Miss Dixon, following her friend.
"Tell me dear--is he--is he dead?" she asked of Alice.

"Dead! No, of course not!" said Alice, none too politely. "Don't be
silly! He just fell overboard, and they got him back again; that's all."

Miss Dixon looked angry and flounced back to her cabin with her chum.
Jack and his rescuers were hoisted up in the boat, the other sailors
hauling on the ropes, the blocks of which were hooked fast to rings in
the bow and stern posts of the rowing craft.

"Well, you tried to leave us rather suddenly," said Mr. Pertell. "Don't
go trying that again, Jack--at least until we finish making the
pictures," he went on with a whimsical smile. "You're in too many
important scenes to be lost that way."

"I haven't any fancy that way myself," said Jack, who seemed little the
worse for his unexpected bath.

"How did it happen?" asked Captain Brisco of his mate, though it seemed
as though he had been near enough to have seen for himself.

"Why, I was standing near the rail," Jack explained, "talkin' to Mr.
Lacomb, here," and he indicated the strange man, "when, all at once the
ship gives a lurch, and--well, I went over, that's all I guess," and he
looked at Lacomb, as though to get him to confirm the account.

"Yes that's right," said the o