get out. You'll be suffocated there."

But at first the prisoner seemed not to understand--or else was
afraid to make the attempt.

"Oh, if I only had an axe!" groaned Master Tom.

"If you cut into that tree you might do some damage," said his
sister, now so much interested in the prisoner that she got up and
came near.

Ruth saw Helen's red cap high up on the bank and she scrambled up
and got it, stuffing it under her coat again.

"We'll keep _that_ out of sight," she said.

"If it hadn't been for that old red thing," growled Tom, "the bull
wouldn't have chased us in the first place."

But all of them were thinking mainly of the person in the hollow of
the old stump. How could they get this person out?

And the answer to that question was not so easily found--as Tom had
observed. They could not roll the stump over; they had no means of
cutting through to the prisoner. But, suddenly, that individual
settled the question without their help. There was a struggle under
the log, a splashing of the water, and then a figure bobbed up out of
the shallows.

Ruth screamed and seized it before it fell back again. It was a boy--