"Don't seem likely you'd do such a thing, and never throw it up at me some time, when I was naggin' you," went on the other, doubtfully.
"Oh! I felt like doing that same more'n a few times, believe me," said Fred.
"Then why didn't you?" asked Buck.
"He didn't just because I asked him as a favor to me not to say a word to a single soul," broke in the eager Billy, just then. "You know, Buck, father told me he'd whip me if ever he heard of my tryin' that cranky canoe of yours. And I was afraid he'd do it, too, if he heard how near I was to bein' drownded."
"Well, that sure just gets me!" muttered Buck, who found it hard to understand how a fellow could hide his light under a bushel, and not "blow his own horn," when he had jumped into the river, and pulled out a drowning boy. "Say, is that so too, Fenton; did you keep mum just because Billy here asked you to?"
"That was the only reason," replied Fred; "but you must give some of the credit to Bristles Carpenter, who couldn't swim much then; but he waded in, and helped to get us ashore. And he pulled the canoe in, too. Then we took it down to the place you keep it; while Billy played by himself in the warm sun till his clothes got dry; didn't you, Billy?"
"Just what I did," said the small boy, cheerfully. "And not a person ever knowed I'd been in the water. Oh! I've always thought it was mighty nice in Fred; and it used to make me feel so bad when I heard you talkin' about him the way you did, Buck. More'n a few times I just wanted to tell you all about it, to show you he couldn't be the mean boy you said; but I dassent; I was scared you'd think you had to tell father on me."
As he knelt there Buck was fighting an inward battle; and the enemy with which he grappled was his own baser nature. Fred did not have a single fear as to how it was bound to come out. He knew that Buck could not deny the obligation that had been so unexpectedly forced upon him.
Then Buck suddenly reached down. He had made up his mind, and was even then groping for the end of the vine which Fred was reaching up to him.
Once he got this firmly in his hands, he simply said: