CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
AN OFFICIAL REPORT.
Scarfe, on the return of the skating party to Wildtree, found himself the hero of the hour.

Whether the risk he ran in rescuing his old schoolfellow from his icy bath had been great or small, it had resulted in saving Jeffreys' life, and that was quite sufficient to make a hero of him.

Percy, easily impressed by the daring of any one else, and quite overlooking his own share in the rescue, was loud in his praises.
"How jolly proud you must feel!" said he.

"I know I should if I'd saved a fellow's life.

That's never my luck!" "You lent a hand," said Scarfe, with the complacency of one who can afford to be modest.
And, to do Scarfe justice, until he heard himself credited with the lion's share of the rescue, he had been a little doubtful in his own mind as to how much of it he might justly claim.
"Oh," said Percy, "a lot I did! You might as well say Raby lent a hand by lending Jeff her shawl." "I was the cause of it all," said Raby.