It carried him along like a boat, and he clambered out on a green island.
"It's just like Robinson Crusoe!" he told himself. "Here I am, all alone, and nobody in sight. I can do just as I please!"
He ran up and down in the sunlight, laughing and shouting in the wind and throwing his arms about.
How good it felt to be alive!
"Guess I'll go back and get the gun," he said, "and see if I can't shoot one of those wild ducks. I'll make mother a present of it for dinner to-night."
It wasn't so easy to swim back. He had to fight against the current that had carried him to the little green island.
It was less effort to leave the stream and scramble through the reeds along the muddy bank.
Sometimes a stone or a shell hurt his foot, but he only laughed and went on.
"You just wait, you ducks," he said. "You'd better look out when I begin to shoot!"
He came to where the gun lay on his clothes, where he had been careful to place it so that no sand would get into the muzzle.