"They'd have to hunt, then," said Joe Biddle. "Keep it, Sid."
Just at that moment Mort Senter was whispering to Jake Potter, slyly: "Don't tell him, Jake. Pass it round. He's only a rod to go. Don't let him know about the hole."
Charley was too busy over Sid's really remarkable duck-stone to take note of the winks and nods and whispers that were firing off around him, and as soon as he discovered that there was no fault to be found with the size, smoothness, roundness, or weight of Sid's pebble, he was again wading on down stream.
"Sh, boys!"
Fred Babbitt was raising his hand as if warning somebody, when Charley McGraw suddenly caught his breath with an astonished "Oh!" and went clean under the water. He made hardly any splash; but in a moment more his head came to the surface, and he recovered breath enough to ask, "I say, boys, what's this?"
"Didn't we tell you we were going for a swim?" said Joe Biddle. "That's the hole. It begins with an old rock, and it's ten feet deep. Best kind of a hole."
"Better 'n' any thing you've got over in Putney," said Bill Eaton. "Why didn't you wait and take your clothes off? We always do."
Charley was a good swimmer, and he was on his way to the shore before they had said half they had to say about that hole, and the duck-stones there were at the bottom of it. All the rest were on their way to the bank, but they were a little careful about their footing until they got there.
"Wring 'em out, Charley, and hang 'em up to dry while we're in," said Bob Wilson. "I should hate to live in Putney, though, if that's the way you fellows always go in swimming."