The walk descended at quite a decided incline to the water's edge. It was raised on posts above the level of the ground, so that a fall from it would mean serious injury. There was naught for the luckless colonel to do but sit, helpless, in the saddle and let the wheel take its course. Helpless, but not silent. Beholding the fate that was inevitable, the colonel gave utterance to a wild roar of despair, which, together with the rumbling of the wheels above his head, drove forth his dog from his hiding-place. Cæsar, espying this new and extraordinary object rattling down the board walk, and mindful of the agonizing shrieks of his master, himself pursued the flying wheel, yelping and barking and adding his voice to that of Colonel Witham. There was no escape. The heavy wheel, bearing its ponderous weight of misery, and pursued to the very edge of the float by the dog, plunged off into the water with a mighty splash. Colonel Witham, clinging in desperation to the handle bars, sank with the wheel in some seven feet of water. Then, amid a whirl and bubbling of the water like a boiling spring, the colonel's head appeared once more above the surface. Choking and sputtering, he cried for help. "Help! help!" he roared. "I'm drowning. I can't swim." "No, but you'll float," bawled Little Tim, who was darting into the shed for a rope. Indeed, as the colonel soon discovered, now that he was once more at the surface, it seemed really impossible for him to sink. He turned on his back and floated like a whale. And at this moment, most opportunely, there appeared up the road the line of bicyclists returning. They were down at the shore shortly--Tom Harris, Bob White, George, Arthur and Joe Warren--just as Little Tim emerged from the shed, with an armful of rope. "Here, you catch hold," he said, "while I make fast to the colonel." The next moment, he was overboard, swimming alongside Colonel Witham. "Look out he don't grab you and drown you both," called George Warren. Little Tim was too much of a fish in the water to be caught that way. The most available part of Colonel Witham to make fast to, as he floated at length, was his nearest foot. Tim Reardon threw a loop about that foot, then the other; and the boys ashore hauled lustily. The colonel, more than ever resembling a whale--but a live one, inasmuch as he continued to bellow helplessly--came slowly in, and stranded on the shore. They drew him well in with a final tug. "Here, quit that," he gurgled. "Want to drag me down the road?" The colonel struggled to his feet, his face purple with anger. "Now get out of here, all of you!" he roared. "There's always trouble when you're around. Tim Reardon, you keep away from here, do you understand?" "Yes sir," replied Tim Reardon, wringing his own wet clothes; and then added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "but ain't you going to show us those medals, Colonel Witham?"