The dam was a wide, smooth sheet of water, with trees growing round the edge, and some of them hanging so low over it that they almost touched it. The boys made trips back and forth across the dam, and to and from the edge of the fall, till they got tired of it, and they were wanting something to happen, when Dave stuck his pole deep into the muddy bottom, and set his shoulder hard against the top of the pole, with a “Here she goes, boys, over the Falls of the Ohio!” and he ran along the edge of the raft from one end to the other.
Frank and Dave had both straightened up to watch him. At the stern of the raft Dave tried to pull up his pole for another good push, but it stuck fast in the mud at the bottom of the dam, and before Dave knew what he was about, the raft shot from under his feet, and he went overboard with his pole in his hand, as if he were taking a flying leap with it. The next minute he dropped into the water heels first, and went down out of sight. He came up blowing water from his mouth, and holloing and laughing, and took after the raft, where the other fellows were jumping up and down, and bending back and forth, and screaming and yelling at the way he looked hurrying after his pole, and then dangling in the air, and now showing his black head in the water like a musk-rat swimming for its hole. They were having such a good time mocking him that they did not notice how his push had sent the raft swiftly in under the trees by the shore, and the first thing they knew, one of the low branches caught them, and scraped them both off the raft into the water, almost on top of Dave. Then it was Dave’s turn to laugh, and he began: “What’s the matter, boys? Want to help find the other end of that pole?”
Jake was not under the water any longer than Dave had been, but Frank did not come up so soon. They looked among the brush by the shore, to see if he was hiding there and fooling them, but they could not find him. “He’s stuck in some snag at the bottom,” said Dave; “we got to dive for him”; but just then Frank came up, and swam feebly for the shore. He crawled out of the water, and after he got his breath, he said, “I got caught, down there, in the top of an old tree.”
“Didn’t I tell you so?” Dave shouted into Jake’s ear.
“Why, Jake was there till I got loose,” said Frank, looking stupidly at him.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Jake. “I was up long ago, and I was just goin’ to dive for you; so was Dave.”
“Then it was that other fellow,” said Frank. “I thought it didn’t look overmuch like Jake, anyway.”
“Oh, pshaw!” Dave jeered. “How could you tell, in that muddy water?”
“I don’t know,” Frank answered. “It was all light round him. Looked like he had a piece of the rainbow on him, or foxfire.”
“I reckon if I find him,” said Dave, “I’ll take his piece of rainbow off’n him pretty quick. That’s the fourth time that feller’s fooled us to-day. Where d’you s’pose he came up? Oh, I know! He got out on the other side under them trees, while we was huntin’ for Frank, and not noticin’. How’d he look, anyway?”