Suddenly Master Meadow Mouse's courage oozed out through his toes. He couldn't stay on his raft another second. Springing to his feet, he scurried to the edge of the board and slipped off it into the water.
At his first move Mr. Heron moved too. He lifted his great wings and flapped them, tucking his legs under his body at the same time. A half dozen flaps carried him abreast of the floating board. And there Mr. Heron let his long legs down into the water until he stood again upon the bottom of the creek. He scanned the water eagerly, even plunging his head into it and looking all around. But he couldn't see Master Meadow Mouse anywhere.
"This is queer," he mumbled. "I knew those fellows were good swimmers. But I didn't think this one could get away from me so quickly."
Mr. Great Blue Heron waded about the creek for some time, searching everywhere—or almost everywhere. And while he was searching, the deserted raft swung off down the creek, hung for a few moments at the edge of the channel, and then drifted lazily toward shore, where it lodged at last among the reeds.
The disappointed fisherman returned to his fishing. But it seemed as if his luck had turned. Not another fish came his way. And being too wise to expect that another Meadow Mouse would come traveling down the creek on a raft, Mr. Great Blue Heron at last forsook his sport and sailed away through the air towards the lake on the other side of Blue Mountain.
He hadn't been gone a great while when Master Meadow Mouse might have been seen picking his way along the bank. He was journeying upstream, on his way home.
"It was lucky for me—" he explained to his cousin, whom he met later—"it was lucky for me that I could swim under water. Otherwise I shouldn't have been able to hide beneath the board and stay there until it swung into the rushes."
"You had a narrow escape," his cousin told him. "Don't say that I didn't warn you!"
That cousin was one of those persons that always exclaim, "I told you so!"
