Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/192

 And Lionel Clarence, finding himself so dramatically discovered, wisely and doggedly swam out to midstream, where he mounted the black-walnut root, and where he remained until a truce was made and his own terms were finally agreed upon.

Leena and Lionel Clarence's grandmother were crying audibly, by this time, declaring it would all be the death of the boy, and pleading for some one to plunge in and rescue the poor lad before it was too late.

But old Doctor Ridley pulled up his coat-sleeve, and thrust his hand down into the water of the swimming-hole.

"Tut, tut!" he exclaimed. "It 's as warm as new milk!" And he established a dangerous precedent in Chamboro therapeutics by publicly attesting that it would n't do the boy a bit of harm, and that he was vastly mistaken, indeed, if it would n't cool his fever off a bit.

So Lionel Clarence, having been induced to paddle ashore, as the women in the searching party discreetly withdrew, was carefully muffled up in a lap-robe, and driven home in the Barrisons' phaeton.