"'Now,' he says, so mad he could hardly speak, 'stop your lying and row,
will you!'

"I was willing to row then. I cal'lated I'd done some missionary work
by this time. Allie's guns was spiked, if I knew Barbara Saunders. I
p'inted the skiff the way she'd ought to go and laid to the oars.

"My plan had been to get him aboard the skiff and row
somewheres--ashore, if I could. But 'twas otherwise laid out for me. The
wind was blowing pretty fresh, and the skiff was down by the stern, so's
the waves kept knocking her nose round. 'Twas dark'n a pocket, too. I
couldn't tell where I WAS going.

"Allie got more fidgety every minute. 'Ain't we 'most there?' he asks.
And then he gives a screech. 'What's that ahead?'

"I turned to see, and as I done it the skiff's bow slid up on something.
I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and tilted; a wave
caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me and Allie and the
skiff was under water, bound for the bottom. We'd run acrost one of the
guy-ropes of my fish-weir.

"This wa'n't in the program. I hit sand with a bump and pawed up for
air. When I got my head out I see a water-wheel doing business close
along-side of me. It was Allie.

"'Help!' he howls. 'Help! I'm drowning!'

"I got him by the collar, took one stroke and bumped against the
weir-nets. You know what a fish-weir's like, don't you, Mr. Brown?--a