surface and was floundering about like a huge turtle. Jeanne threw a large portion of the big net overboard, keeping a firm grasp on what remained.

"Hang on to this," she shouted. "Don't pull—just hold on. There! you couldn't sink if you wanted to. Now just keep still—keep still; I tell you, and I'll tow you down to that low place where the dock's broken. You can climb up, I guess. Don't be afraid. I've pulled my brother out four times and my sister once—only it wasn't so deep. There, one hand on that plank, one on the net. Put your foot in the crack—that's right. Now give me your hand. There—stand here on my garden and I won't have to water it. My! But you're wet."

Roger was wet. But now that he was no longer frightened, he was even angrier than wet. To be saved by a girl—a thin little slip of a girl at that—was a fearful indignity. A fellow could stand falling in. But to be saved by a girl!

To make it worse, the dock was no longer deserted. There were folks gathering outside the tumble-down shack to look at him. A fat, untidy woman with frowzy reddish hair. A bent old woman with her head tied up in a filthy rag. A small dark man with very bright black eyes. Two staring children. The morning sun made three of the tousled heads blazed like fire. But the boy's wrath blazed even more fiercely. To be saved by a girl! And all those staring people watching him drip! It was too much.

Without a word of thanks, and with all the dignity that he could muster, plump young Roger marched past the assembled multitude—it seemed like that to him—straight along the dock toward the shore, leaving behind him a wet, shining trail.

With much difficulty, because of his soggy shoes, he climbed the rough path up the bank to Lake Street, crossed that thoroughfare to clamber up the exceedingly long flight of stairs—four long flights to be exact—that led to the street above. A workman going down met him toiling up.

"Hey!" the man called cheerfully. "Looks like you'd had an accident. Fell in somewheres?"

There was no response. Roger climbed steadily on. By sneaking through backyards and driveways, he managed at last to slip into the open door of his own home, up the stairs, and into his own pleasant room, where he proceeded, with some haste, to change his clothes.

He owned three union suits. He had one of them on. One was in the wash. The other should have been in his bureau drawer—but it wasn't. To ask for it meant to disclose the fact that he had been in the lake—a secret that he had decided never to disclose to anybody. With a sigh for his own discomfort, young Roger dressed himself in dry garments, over his wet union suit.

"But what," said Roger, eying the heap of sodden clothing on the floor, "shall I do with those?"

Finally he hung the wet suit in the closet, with his dry pajamas spread carefully over them. He concealed his wet shoes, with his socks stuffed inside, far back in a bureau drawer.

CHAPTER II

PART OF THE TRUTH

Roger, with his rather long hair carefully brushed, sauntered downstairs to the nicely furnished dining-room, where his mother was eating breakfast. Mrs. Fairchild was a most attractive little woman. Like Roger, she was blue-eyed and fair. She was taller, however, than Roger and not nearly so wide.

"Good morning," said she, with a very pleasant smile. "I guess we're both late this morning. Your father's been gone for twenty minutes."

"Good morning," shivered Roger.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Fairchild, catching sight of her son's remarkably sleek head. "I do wish you wouldn't put so much water on your hair when you comb it. It isn't at all necessary and it looks horrid—particularly when it's so long. Do be more careful next time."

"I will," promised Roger, helping himself to an orange.

"It must have taken you a great while to dress. I thought I heard you stirring about hours ago."

"Yes'm," returned Roger, looking anywhere except at his pretty mother.

"I'm glad you remembered to put on your old clothes, since it's Saturday. But—why, Roger! What is that?"

"That" was a thin, brownish stream, scarcely more than an elongated drop—trickling down the boy's wrist to the back of his plump hand. Roger looked at it with horror. His drenched, fleece-lined underwear was betraying him.

Mrs. Fairchild pushed up his coat sleeve, turned back the damp cuff of his blue cotton shirt, and disclosed three inches of wet, close-fitting sleeve. She poked an investigating finger up her son's arm. Then her suspicious eye caught a curious change of color in the bosom of his blue shirt. It had darkened mysteriously in patches. She touched one of them. Then she reached up under his coat and felt his moist back.

"Roger, how in the world did your shirt get so wet? Surely you didn't do all that washing yourself?"

"No'm."

"Have you been outdoors?"

"Yes'm."

"Watering the grass?"

"No'm."

"Hum—Katie says somebody dug a hole in my pansy bed last night. It's a splendid place for worms. Have you, by any chance, been trying your new pole?"

Silence.

"Have you, Roger?"

"Ye—es'm," gulped Roger.

"Did you fall in?"

"Ye—es'm."

"How did you get out?"

"Jus—just climbed out."

"Roger Fairchild! You're shivering! And that window wide open behind you! Come upstairs with me this instant and I'll put you to bed between hot blankets. It's a mercy I discovered those wet clothes. I'll have Katie bring you some hot broth the moment you're in bed."

Roger, under a mountain of covers, was thankful that he hadn't had to divulge the important part Jeanne Duval had played in his rescue. All that morning, when his mother asked troublesome questions, he shivered so industriously that the anxious little woman fled for more hot blankets or more hot broth. The blankets were tiresome and he already held almost a whole boyful of broth; but anything, he thought, was better than telling that he had been pulled out of the lake in a smelly old fish net; and by a girl! A small girl at that.

But, in spite of his care, the truth, or at least part of it, was to come out. The very next day, a small red-headed, barefooted, and very ragged boy appeared at the Fairchilds' back door. He carried a fish-pole in one hand, a navy-blue cap in the other. Inside the cap, neatly printed in indelible ink, were Roger's name and address; for Roger, like many another careless boy, frequently lost his belongings.

"My sister," said Michael Duval, handing the cap and the pole to the cook, "sent these here. She pulled 'em out of the lake—same as she did the fat boy what lives here."

"How was that, now?" asked Katie, with interest.

"Wiv a fish net. It was awful deep where he fell in—way over your head."

"Wait here, sonny. I'll tell the missus about it."

But when Katie returned after telling "Missus," she found no small red-headed boy outside the door. Michael had turned shy, as small boys will, and had fled. Neither Katie nor Mrs. Fairchild, gazing down the street, could catch a glimpse of him.

But Mrs. Fairchild managed to extract a little more information from Roger, now fully recovered from his unlucky bath.

Yes, the water was deep—ten miles deep, he guessed—because it took an awful while to come up. Yes, he had been pulled out by somebody. Perhaps it might have been a girl. A big girl. A perfectly tremendous girl. A regular giantess, in fact. She had reached down with a long, long arm, and helped him up. A fishnet? Oh—yes (casually), he believed there was a fish net there.

"Where," asked Mrs. Fairchild, "was that dock?"

"Oh, I dunno—just around anywhere. There's a lot of docks in Bancroft—a fellow doesn't look to see which one he's