"Hel-low, there!" cried Harry; "what's the matter, Tony?"
Tony never answered a word, but spluttered and puffed, and struck out slowly but vigorously for the bank.
"Wait a minute," cried Harry, wildly excited, "I'll reach you a pole."
But Tony did not wait, and Harry could find no pole. When he turned around from his hurried search among the bushes, the turkey-hunter had found bottom, and was standing with his head out of water. But the bottom was soft and muddy, and he flopped about dolefully when he attempted to walk to the bank. Harry reached his gun out toward him, but Tony, with a quick jerk of his arm, motioned it away.
"I'd rather be drownded than shot," he spluttered. "I don't want no gun-muzzles pinted at me. Take a-hold of that little tree, and then reach me your hand."
Harry seized a young tree that grew on the very edge of the bank, and as soon as Tony managed to flop himself near enough, Harry leaned over and took hold of his outstretched hand and gave him a jerk forward with all his strength. Over went Tony, splash on his face in the water, and Harry came very near going in head-foremost on top of him. But he recovered himself, and, not having loosed his grip of Tony's hand, he succeeded, with a mighty effort, in dragging the turkey-hunter's head out of the water; and, after a desperate struggle with the mud, Tony managed to get on his feet again.
"I don't know," said he, blowing the water out of his mouth and shaking his dripping head, "but what I'd 'most as lieve be shot as ducked that way. Don't you jerk so hard again. Hold steady, and let me pull."
Harry took a still firmer grasp of the tree and "held steady," while Tony gradually worked his feet through the sticky mud until he reached the bank, and then he laboriously clambered on shore.
"How did it happen?" said Harry. "How did you get in the water?"
"Boat upsot," said Tony, seating himself, all dripping with water and mud, upon the bank.