A white-haired old man was seated before an easel, on which was stretched a large canvas.

A young girl stood near him watching the movements of his brush with deep interest, and at the same time evidently restraining, with gentle but firm hands, the impatient struggles of something which she addressed as "Don Blossom," but whether it was a child or an animal Winn could not see.

In his effort to do so he stood on tiptoe, and just as the old man began to say, "There, Sabella, that will do for this sitting," the boy's treacherous footing slipped from under him.
With a half-suppressed cry and a loud splash he was plunged headlong into the narrow space of water between the boat and the shore.
A frightened exclamation came from the interior of the boat, and then the small door on that side was flung open.

At the same instant a woolly head was thrust out of the galley window, and a trembling voice cried, "Golly, Marse Cap'n! Wha' dat ar?
Yo' heah um ?" "Yes, Solon, I heard it, and you want to come here as quick as you can.
Some one is in trouble," answered the old man, who was standing with the girl in the open doorway.

He held a lamp above his head, and was peering anxiously in the direction of the splashings and flounderings that Winn, sitting in the shallow water, but tightly wedged between the log and the boat, was making in his efforts to extricate himself.
"Who's there ?" cried the old man, who could not yet make out what was taking place; "and what are you doing ?" [Illustration: "'Who's there ?' cried the old man"] "It's me!" returned Winn, regardless of his grammar; "and I am sinking in this awful mud.