Someone--not the Captain, but a boy in a blue shirt--looked up from the wheel. Then I heard Mr. Snider come crashing and floundering through the underbrush, so I waded into the water until I was waist-deep and then struck out to swim. Before I had made a dozen strokes Mr. Snider emerged, and ran down to the water's edge. But I had no idea he would follow me now. He didn't look like a person who could swim,--nor even like one who enjoyed cold water much. I glanced back at him over my shoulder,--he was simply standing there, gazing after me, and rubbing his hands together excitedly, clasping and unclasping them. "Captain Bannister!" I called out again, "the Hoppergrass! Wait!" The boy who was steering put the helm over a trifle, altering the course of the boat a little more in my direction. Another boy came up from below, and stood there staring at me. In three minutes I was alongside, and reaching out for the tender. "Let me come aboard!" I gasped,--"that man--" But I was too much winded to say anything more. With some difficulty--for I had been swimming harder than was necessary--I crawled into the tender, and sat down to get my breath. As I sat there, one of the boys said: "Why, that's Mr. Snider!" Then he pulled the tender alongside, and I stepped on board the "Hoppergrass." "Now, I know why you were running," said he,--"anyone would run to get away from Snider. Has he been advising you to be good?" "He's been trying to--I don't know what. Kill me, I guess. Do you know him?" "Don't we!" they both exclaimed together. And then the one at the wheel said: "Has he g-got his g-gold machine here?" "Yes," I said, "he and another man. They're a couple of crooks, and they're cheating people out of stacks of money. How did you know him?" "Oh, he's b-been at the house. But after the first t-time we always s-skun out, over the back f-fence when we heard he was coming. Mr. Chick brought him,--to talk b-business with F- Father." The "Hoppergrass," still sailing slowly, had drawn near the point of land at the entrance of the little bay. Mr. Snider, who had walked a few steps along the shore, stood near this point,-- watching us. We passed so near him that I could easily have hit him with a base-ball, if I had had one, and felt so inclined. It was curious to be so near a man who, five minutes earlier, had been chasing me with a club. He was still clasping and unclasping his hands nervously, but he said nothing, and neither did we. After about half a minute he turned, and hurried through the trees in the direction of the house. "I think I'll get some dry clothes," said I, starting toward the cabin. Then I stopped,--it occurred to me that there were some questions to be asked. Up to this moment I had been so glad to get away from Mr. Snider, and to find the boat again, that I had thought of nothing else. "Say--look here--you know,--how do you happen to be on this boat, anyhow? Where's Captain Bannister?"