Silently the paddle went into the water, Betsy leaning back, with lips compressed, and in a second the canoe shot ten feet out from the tree, and the Sheriff was left dangling among the vines!
“Stop your senseless jokes!” roared the officer.
“Keep cool, old Tap-my-shoulder! thar’s jist the smallest grain of a joke in this here, that ever you seed. It’s the coldest sort of airnest.”
“What shall I do? How shall I get out of this?” asked Ellis, piteously.
“Let all go and drop in the water, and swim out,” was the reply.
“I can’t swim a lick—how deep is it?”
Suggs seemed to ruminate, and then replied:
“From—say—fifteen—yes, at least, fifteen—to—about twenty-five foot. Ugly place!”
“Gracious goodness!” said poor Ellis, “you certainly won’t leave me here to drown—my strength is failing already.”
“If I don’t,” said the Captain, most emphatically, “I wish I may be cotched and hanged where you are,” and saying a word to Betsy, they shot rapidly across the river.