He had sunk in the soft mud, and even if he had had the courage to stand up straight, the water would have been above his head.

But it had never occurred to him to do otherwise than lie gasping and flat on the bottom, where he was drowning as fast as he possibly could.
Gypsy pulled him out and carried him ashore.

She wrung him out a little, and set him down on the grass, and then, by way of doing something, she took her dripping handkerchief out of her dripping pocket and wiped her hands on it.
"O--o--oh!" gasped Winnie; "I never did--you'd ought to know--you've just gone'n drownded me!" "What a story!" said Gypsy; "you're no more drowned than I am.

To be sure you _are_ rather wet," she added, with a disconsolate attempt at a laugh.
"You oughtn't to have tooken me out on that old raft," glared Winnie, through the shower of water-drops that rained down from his forehead, "you know you hadn't! I'll just tell mother.

I'll get sick and be died after it, you see if I don't." "Very well," said Gypsy, giving herself a little shake, very much as a pretty brown spaniel would do, who had been in swimming.
"You may do as you like.