low his father, Captain Trevor told him he could swim.

Bob liked it then, but he never told his father how frightened he used
to feel at first.

They were approaching this penstock, which was really a great square
pipe, made of thick boards nailed to posts, and with a sliding door at
the end, which could be pulled up to let some of the water run out when
the pool was too full, and as they reached it, while the little vessel
was sailing away nearly as fast as they could walk, Bob ran out to the
end of the wooden drain.

"Oh! do mind!" cried Dot.

"Oh, yes! I shall mind," said the boy importantly; "but what a bother
it is that the steam doesn't come. We'll bring a bottle of boiling
water out of the kitchen with us next time."

"Yes," said Dot; "that will be the best way."

"And I shall take off the hatch----"

"What's a hatch?" asked Dot.

"Oh! what silly things girls are!" said the Skipper.

"That they're not," cried Dot, "I know. Of course: it's that box lid
you open in the floor."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Skipper boisterously. "Box lid in the floor!
Why, it's the hatch; and it isn't the floor, it's the deck; and I shall
take it off and fill the hold with little lumps of coal."

"Oh, yes! I know that. It's called the 'hold' because it holds so
much."

The boy took no notice, but went on:--"And I must have a big gun, like
there is in front of Pa's ship, and a powder-magazine."

"But you mustn't let it off," cried Dot.

"But I shall let it off, and you may run away. Oh! what silly things
girls are!" and he began to return.

Dot was pouting because she was called silly, but her pretty little
face grew animated with trouble the next moment, for the Skipper was
walking backwards, so as to keep his eyes fixed upon his sailing-boat.
"Oh! Bob, Bob, mind, or you'll tumble in."

"Hoo! hoo! hoo!" he cried, and began to stamp about, and pretended to
stagger as if on the point of falling, while Dot screamed aloud in
agony and turned white.

This was too much for the boy. He turned and ran back to her side, to
catch her in his arms and kiss her.

"Oh, don't! don't cry, poor little old girl," he cried, kissing her wet
face again, while she clung to him.

"You--you shouldn't, Bob," she sobbed. "You did frighten me so."

"And I was only pretending," he said soothingly, as he hugged her, and
led her along the sand, with his arm about her little waist.

"It--it did hurt, Bob," she sighed, with a smile beginni