Adventure stories; Puget Sound Region (Wash.) -- Juvenile fiction; Ranch life -- Juvenile fiction; Young men -- Juvenile fiction
"You don't want to try that in less than four feet until you're sure you
can do it right," he said when he had climbed on board. "The other kind
of diving's different." Then, taking up a galvanized pin, he threw it
in. "See whether you can fetch it. There's about eight or nine feet of
water here. You can open your eyes as soon as your head's in, and you
won't have any trouble in coming up again. Jump, and throw your legs
straight up as you go."
Frank managed this time not to drop in a heap as he had done before. He
also opened his eyes under water for the first time and found it
perfectly easy to see. It was like looking through green glass. He could
make out the pin lying a long way down beneath him. It was, however,
impossible to reach it. The water seemed determined on forcing him back
to the top, and when he abandoned the struggle to get down he seemed to
reach the surface with a bound.
"How far did I go?" he gasped.
"About six feet. It's quite as far as I expected."
Harry plunged, and Frank, who had climbed out in the meanwhile, saw him
striking upward with his feet until he turned and came up with a rush,
holding the pin in one hand. Flinging it on board he headed for the
beach and was standing on the shingle rubbing himself with his hands
when Frank joined him.
"I guess you had two towels when you went swimming back East?" he
laughed.
Frank looked up inquiringly, acknowledging that he usually had taken
one.
"Well," said Harry, "we have them at the homestead, but there are
ranches in this country where you wouldn't get even one."
"No towels!" exclaimed Frank in some astonishment. "What do they use
instead?"
"Some of them cut a very little bit off of a cotton flour bag. Those
bags are valuable because they keep them to mend their shirts with. I've
a notion that the other fellows sit in the sun."
Frank laughed and scrambled into his clothes after rubbing himself with
his hands. He was commencing to realize that whether Harry was joking
with him or not it was unavoidable that they should have different ways
in different parts of so big a country. Indeed, now that he was some
four thousand miles from Boston, he felt that instead of its being
curious that the people were slightly different it was wonderful that
they were so much the same. If one measured four thousand miles across
Europe and Asia one would get Frenchmen at the one end and wild Cossacks
or nomad Tartars at the other, with perhaps a score of wholly different
nations, speaking different languages, between.
They had an excellent appetite for supper when they went back to the
ranch, and after the meal was over, Mr. Oliver took down a rifle from
the wall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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