“Pretty close call for a kid like you,” said Sam.
“Poof! I’m tough!” insisted the boy. “I’d have been all right—crawled out myself, I would, if it hadn’t been for that sleepy feeling that came over me. But it was all right, anyway. There was old Orkney to hold my head out of water, and you were coming on the run. But, as it is, Orkney’ll have a good laugh on me, I tell you.”
Sam grasped the fact that Perrine had not been informed of Tom’s disappearance.
“Oh, so he—he’ll have the laugh on you?” he asked uncertainly.
“Sure! You see, he’d been telling me to keep away from the thin places. When he came along I was doing stunts—seeing how close to a blow-hole I could skate, you know; and he made a fuss about it. Why, he grabbed me, and lugged me back to shore, and tried to make me promise to quit the funny business. But I got away from him, and beat it for the dam. I didn’t think he’d dare chase me, he weighs so much more than I do. But he pelted after me, and he’d have got me if I hadn’t kept dodging. And then—well, then the thing happened. But old Orkney was a brick, wasn’t he?”
Sam strove to make fitting reply, but achieved only a choking sound.
“Why, what’s the matter?” demanded Little Perrine. “And what makes you look so queer?”
Sam wiped his forehead with his handkerchief; he had a sense of fighting for time.
“Oh, looking—looking queer, was I?”
Little Perrine grinned. “Say! It was as if I’d hit you between the eyes and dazed you.”