Tying up the boat to a stake, the boys crossed the bridge, and made their way through the crowd of bathers down to the waves.
"Oh, oh!" screamed Freddie. "I see him! There he is!" and sure enough, there was Downy, like a tiny speck, rolling up and down on the waves, evidently having a fine swim, and not being in the least alarmed at the mountains of water that came rolling in.
"Oh, how can we get him?" cried Freddie, nearly running into the water in his excitement.
"I don't know," Hal admitted. "He's pretty far out."
Just then a life-saver came along. Freddie always insisted the life-guards were not white people, because they were so awfully browned from the sun, and really, this one looked like some foreigner, for he was almost black.
"What's the trouble?" he asked, seeing Freddie's distress.
"Oh, Downy is gone!" cried the little fellow in tears now.
"Gone!" exclaimed the guard, thinking Downy was some boy who had swam out too far.
"Yes, see him out there," sobbed Freddie, and before the other boys had a chance to tell the guard that Downy was only a duck, the life-saver was in his boat, and pulling out toward the spot where Freddie said Downy was "downing"!
"There's someone drowning!" went up the cry all around. Then numbers of men and boys, who had been bathing, plunged into the waves, and followed the life-saver out to the deeper water.