“I say, Ike,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to hit you. I just had to. I grabbed you just the right way but you twisted and caught me tight. We would have both been drowned if I hadn’t lammed you so hard as to knock you loose.” Feeling that he had spoken too softly, he said severely: “I never expected to see a Chicago kid of your age that couldn’t swim.”
“You see,” Ike explained. “I went to a swimming teacher once to learn to swim good, you understand. He try me for awhile then he tell me I can’t never learn, my race is too much against me.”
“How’s that?” Alex asked, sympathetically.
“He said I would always work my hands palms up instead of palms down.”
Alex, grinning, got out of his bunk and began slipping on his clothes as he saw Case descending the cabin steps. “Ike,” he said, “you’re a cheerful liar but all the same I believe we are going to be great pals.”
It was when he started for the door that Alex realized his weakness. His legs wabbled under him and his head began to swim. Case caught him tenderly as he reeled and supported him up to where a blanket spread in the sun awaited him. “Say, Case,” he said, as the other tried to make him comfortable, “what makes me so blamed weak?”
“You were farther gone than any of the rest,” Case replied. “Ike got off the lightest of you three, Captain Joe had most of his wounds open with the exertion and he is in pretty bad shape. We thought you were dead when we palled you in over the side. We had to roll you over a barrel and do a lot of other things to get the water out of you.”
“Why, I didn’t swallow much water,” Alex protested.
“You did not notice it because you were so cold and numb. When you were floating on your back you were taking in water all the time.”
“But I felt warm, comfortable and sleepy.”