“Come on,” said the man, as the boat touched the shore.
“Excuse me,” said Clarence politely, “but I’m not dressed to meet visitors. The water is fine anyway; and it’s not near so dangerous as it’s cracked up to be. Can’t you get a fellow at least a pair of trousers?”
“You’ll stay here, will you?”
“I certainly will,” answered the youth, turning on his back and floating. “I’ve had enough of being out on the Mississippi to last me for several weeks at the very least. Go on, there’s a good fellow,—and get me something to put on.”
With a not ill-natured grunt of assent, the man walked up the sloping bank. As he passed the watchful group he uttered a few words; whereupon the larger gypsy boy came down to the shore and fixed a watchful eye upon the bather, while the others broke up and gave themselves to various occupations. Clarence’s rescuer went on beyond the fire, where two tents lay pitched beside a closed wagon—a prairie schooner on a small scale. After some search in which the young woman assisted him, he issued from the larger tent with a pair of frayed khaki trousers and an old calico shirt.
Returning to the river’s edge, he beckoned the swimmer, who, quick to answer the call, seized the clothes and darted behind the largest cottonwood. Clarence was dressed in a trice.
“I wish,” he observed, walking up to his rescuer, “to thank you for saving me. I’ve never been on a big river before; and I was afraid to try swimming. I say,” and as Clarence spoke, he gazed ruefully at his nether garment, “who’s your tailor?”
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Clarence Esmond, age 14, weight 110 pounds, height five feet two in my—”
“And how did you come to be in that boat?”