Landy settled down to taking things easy. He wanted them all to know that he had had a remarkably close call, and every little while he would heave a great sigh, to follow it with such words as:
"I'm terrible glad you boys were on deck to save me. My clothes seemed as heavy as lead, and I sure think I'd have gone down three times if you hadn't chucked me aboard here. That was a narrow squeak for me. I guess I went and got too confident, and it made me careless. But holy smoke! how that mud can grip! I just couldn't get the old pole out nohow, and that's a fact. I won't forget what you did for me, fellers, sure I won't. I hope to be able to do the same for every lasting one of you some day."
"You're too kind, Landy," laughed Toby; "none of us are hankering after an experience like that. I'll never forget what you looked like, dangling there on that push-pole, and trying to squirm your legs around it so as to climb up. Want to know what you made me think of, Landy?"
"Go on and tell me," said the other, with a tremble in his voice, for he was by this time beginning to feel the effect of his immersion.
"Why, you remember how we used to go frog-hunting in a boat, with a three-foot line at the end of a stout pole, and a small hook baited with a piece of red flannel? Well, when we'd see a whopping big greenback we'd dangle that red stuff close to his nose. It was funny to see him squat down like a cat does on sighting a sparrow or a robin, and then jump up to grab the flannel."
Toby paused to chuckle afresh, and the object of his attack urged him to continue, although he evidently realized that he was about to be held up to boyish ridicule.
"First, the frog thinks he wants that queer red bug the worst kind," Toby went on to say, "but as soon as he feels the hook he changes his mind. Then he starts in to do the greatest acrobatic feats you ever saw, twisting his hind legs up over his head like he wanted to turn a somersault, or else climb up the line. Well, when I saw you dangling on that push-pole, I thought of a fat, greenback frog."
"Huh! guess you'd a tried to climb, too, if you'd been in my place," grunted the stout scout, drawing his coat a little closer around him, and shivering.
"No, I'd have stuck by the boat, Landy," said Toby, soberly.
Landy shot him a suspicious glance but did not make a reply. Perhaps he may have been wondering whether any of his mates already suspected that his recent narrow escape had not been such an accident as it appeared.