I hung on and on, even after it seemed I should burst for want of air. Then came a shiver along the lariat and the sensation in my body of scraping against a rock. Although I still held on tightly, my speed suddenly slackened, and I knew the old lasso had been cut in two on the rock. Half-strangled though I was, I began pawing my way to the surface. When at last my head broke through into the air, I hung to the rock, sputtering and gasping. I didn't attempt to do more than get my breath for, I think, a quarter of an hour; but at last I looked round to see where I was. At first I could not make it out, for Moss Beach was nowhere in sight; then, when I saw a couple of huge pelicans perched on the rock above my head, the truth came to me. Nab had taken me out clear round the point and over to Seal Rocks--the island home of seals and pelicans. How I ever could have taken such a dive and come out alive is still a mystery to me, except when I remember how the water churned in my ears at our terrific speed. The rock upon which I hung had been Nab's birthplace, and the place where he had been captured by father and me. Here he used to lie to toast in the sun, and here also he had fled when he felt my line round his flipper. As soon as I could clear the salt water from my mouth and lungs I began to work my way up on the rock. Exhausted as I was, and benumbed with cold, this was no easy matter; and once, when a fragment of rock gave way beneath my fingers, I nearly slipped back into the water. But at last I crawled up far enough to send off the pelicans in fright, and to get where the sun would strike me. I expected to blister my back, but I thought it would be a welcome change from the freezing process. After the blood had begun to warm up a little in my veins I began to think of getting back to the mainland. It was a distance of only a hundred yards from the rock across, but when I looked down into that green water and recalled my recent experiences I shrank from sliding in as from death itself. I measured the distance twenty times with my eyes, and the same number of times assured myself that there would be no undertow here with the tide coming in, but I could not bring myself to let go the rocks that felt so firm and good. When I observed, however, that it was nearly high tide, and that I should have to swim against the tide if I waited much longer, I climbed down without more fooling, and struck back for shore. Although a side current shifted me from my direct course so that I had to land upon another beach than I had intended, I got ashore without difficulty, and hastened across the point to Moss Beach, where I had left my clothes. I never again attempted to recapture Nab, nor have I had an opportunity to repay him for towing me to Seal Rocks; but I have seen him a number of times since, and have often heard his happy bark from the rocks along the coast. OLD MUSKIE THE ROGUE BY LEVI T. PENNINGTON