He took off his cap—an old one—and threw it as far from the boat as he could toss it. Almost as soon as it fell into the water, Patter leaped overboard and swam toward the cap.
Now he was almost up to it—now he had reached it. But would he turn and swim back to the boat with it or would he carry it to shore as Bunny and Sue hoped? Eagerly they watched him.
Then it was Patter showed his training. Never having been taught to take a cap to a boat, he kept on swimming toward shore, as he had always done when he leaped from the bank of a stream and swam out to get the cloth head-covering.
Naturally you would have thought that Patter would swim back to where Bunny was, whether on shore or in a boat. But the dog did not. He seemed to think shore was the proper place for caps that he took from the water, and to shore he went.
Climbing out on the sandy beach, Patter gave himself a shake to get rid of as much water as possible, and then he laid the cap down and began barking. Long and loud barked Patter.
Now, it is a strange thing about the bark of a dog. It can be heard farther than most other sounds. Balloonists, carried high into the air, say that the bark of a dog is the last sound they can hear from the earth they are leaving.
And so, as it happened, Patter’s barking was heard when the calls of Bunny and Sue had not been. Besides, Patter was on shore and nearer the dock than the drifting boat.
Bunker Blue heard the dog’s barking cries. At first the red-haired fish boy paid little attention to the barking, but when Patter kept it up for some time Bunker said:
“I wonder what ails that dog? He sounds like Bunny’s.”
“Why don’t you go out and see,” suggested one of the other men on the dock. Mr. Brown had not yet come back.