"What happened?" exclaimed his companion, hoarsely.
"The child let go! See, he is struggling in the water, but must disappear before the aeroplane can alight, for it is still twenty feet above the lake. Too bad! Too bad! They might have got him in another minute!"
"Look there! One of them has leaped into the lake! See that splash, would you?" shrilled Larry, jumping up and down in his excitement.
"That was Andy, I reckon!" cried Elephant, climbing up on the side of the car, the better to see, at this tremendously exciting stage of the game. "He ain't afraid of anything; neither is Frank, for that matter. And he just dove right down like a hawk after a breakfast of fish. Do you see him, mister? Ain't he come up yet? Oh! my! I wouldn't have missed this for a cookey. What's he doing, mister, please? He's our chum, Andy is, and we're proud of him."
"Yes, there he is alongside the boat now," said Longley, using the binoculars again, "I can see him swimming with one hand. He seems to have injured the other—no, no, it must be he's got the child gripped in his right arm, for I seem to see a yellow head close to his. There, the hydroplane drops in the water near by. The boy lifts up his burden and places it in the boat. Now he's climbing in himself, as if he means to revive the child. Marsh, he's done it! And if that was Andy Bird I take off my hat to him."
Whereupon both Elephant and Larry started in to shout and cheer at the top of their voices; as though they might have a personal interest in the gallant rescue which had just come under their observation.
CHAPTER III
THE MEN IN THE TOURING CAR
When Andy Bird, wet through to the skin, arrived at the fisherman's dock a little later, he found quite a crowd awaiting his coming.
The small urchin, Tommy, had apparently not suffered seriously from his immersion in the waters of Sunrise Lake. Perhaps he was to some extent accustomed to tumbling overboard; though this time the consequences might have been most serious only for the lucky presence of the Bird boys near by, intent on trying out their new hydroplane.