Hold steady, and let me pull." Harry took a still firmer grasp of the tree and "held steady," while Tony gradually worked his feet through the sticky mud until he reached the bank, and then he laboriously clambered on shore.
"How did it happen ?" said Harry.

"How did you get in the water ?" "Boat upsot," said Tony, seating himself, all dripping with water and mud, upon the bank.
"Why, you came near being drowned," said Harry, anxiously.
"No I didn't," answered Tony, pulling a big bunch of weeds and rubbing his legs with them "I kin swim well enough, but a fellar has a rough time in the water with big boots on and his pockets full o' buck-shot." "Couldn't you empty the shot out ?" asked Harry.
"And lose it all ?" asked Tony, with an aggrieved expression upon his watery face.
"But how did it happen ?" Harry earnestly inquired.

"What were you doing in the boat ?" Tony did not immediately answer.

He rubbed at his legs, and then he tried to wipe his face with his wet coat-sleeve, but finding that only made matters worse, he accepted Harry's offer of his handkerchief, and soon got his countenance into talking order.
"Why, you see," said he, "I kept on up the creek till I got opposite John Walker's cabin, where it's narrow, and there's a big tree a-lyin' across--" "Still following that thing ?" interrupted Harry.
"Yes," said Tony; "an' then I got over on the tree and kep' down the creek--" "Still following ?" asked Harry.
"Yes; and I got a long ways down, and had one bad tumble, too, in a dirty little gully; and it was pretty nigh day when I turned to come back.

An' then when I got up here I thought I would look fur John Walker's boat--fur I knew he kept it tied up somewhere down this way--and save myself all that walk.