“Me?” asked Roy, innocently. “Just fixing it.”
“Well, leave it alone, do you hear?” The old shot-gun was pointed in Roy’s direction and Roy thought it wise to obey, especially as he had practically accomplished his purpose. Meanwhile Dick had seized the occasion to give attention to the second rope, but the farmer spied him before he could loosen the knot.
“Come away from there or I’ll let ye have this!” he shouted, angrily. Dick came away and he and Roy sat down on the edge of the bank in the sun, trying to look perfectly at ease. A swift glance upstream showed them a dark object in the water floating slowly down with the current. The object was Chub’s head. They didn’t dare look again until Chub was almost abreast of the boat. Then,
“That was a pretty easy place to get out of you put us in,” said Roy. The farmer blinked his eyes and motioned at Dick with his chin.
“You’d been there yet if it hadn’t been for him,” he said. “If I hadn’t been alone there I guess it wouldn’t have happened.”
“You had Fido,” said Dick.
“He means Carlo,” explained Roy, amiably. “He’s a pretty smart dog, isn’t he?”
“Guess you thought so,” chuckled the farmer. (Roy and Dick were straining their ears for evidences of Chub’s arrival at the other side of the boat.)
“Yes, he’s a nice dog,” said Roy, reflectively. “Of course he isn’t much to look at, but, then, mongrels never are, I suppose.”
“He ain’t a mongrel,” said the farmer, indignantly. “He’s a pure-blooded Saint Bernard, he is.” (Still there was no sound!)