“Look out, Bob,” shouted Dexter. “Pull your right! pull your right!”
Bob was so startled that he looked up over his shoulder, saw the enemy, and tugged at the wrong oar so hard that he sent the boat right toward the overhanging bank.
“I’ve got yer now, have I, then?” roared the man fiercely; and as the boat drifted towards him he reached down and made a snatch with his hand at Dexter’s collar.
As a matter of course the boy ducked down, and the man overbalanced himself.
For a moment it seemed as if he would come down into the boat, over which he hung, slanting down and clinging with both hands now, and glaring at them with his mouth open and his eyes starting, looking for all the world like some huge gargoyle on the top of a cathedral tower.
“Stop!” he roared; and then he literally turned over and came so nearly into the boat that he touched the stern as it passed, and the water he raised in a tremendous splash flew all over the boys.
“Now, Bob, pull, pull, pull!” cried Dexter, stamping his foot as he looked back and saw the man rise out of the water to come splashing after them for a few paces; but wading through mud and water was not the way to overtake a retreating boat, and to Dexter’s horror he saw the fellow struggle to the side and begin to scramble up the bank.
Once he slipped back; but he began to clamber up again, and his head was above the edge when, in obedience to Bob’s tugging at the sculls, the boat glided round one of the various curves of the little creek and shut him from their view.
“He’ll drown’d us. He said he would,” whimpered Bob. “Let’s leave the boat and run.”
“No, no!” cried Dexter; “pull hard, and we shall get out into the river, and he can’t follow us.”