“Ez if,” said Melinda, with lofty but somewhat reddening scorn, “there was a man on this hull rancho that I’d take a second look at.”

“It’s the first look that does the business,” returned Jack simply.  “But maybe I was wrong.  Would you mind—­as you’re going straight back to the house” (Miss Melinda had certainly expressed no such intention)—­“turning those two little kids loose out here?  I’ve a sort of engagement with them.”

“I will speak to their mar,” said Melinda primly, yet with a certain sign of relenting, as she turned away.

“You can say to her that I regretted not finding her in the sitting room when I came down,” continued Jack tactfully.

Apparently the tact was successful, for he was delighted a few moments later by the joyous onset of John Wesley and Mary Emmeline upon the buckeyes, which he at once converted into a game of hide and seek, permitting himself at last to be shamelessly caught in the open.  But here he wisely resolved upon guarding against further grown-up interruption, and consulting with his companions found that on one of the lower terraces there was a large reservoir fed by a mountain rivulet, but they were not allowed to play there.  Thither, however, the reckless Jack hied with his playmates and was presently ensconced under a willow tree, where he dexterously fashioned tiny willow canoes with his penknife and sent them sailing over a submerged expanse of nearly an acre.  But half an hour of this ingenious amusement was brought to an abrupt termination.  While cutting bark, with his back momentarily turned on his companions, he heard a scream, and turned quickly to see John Wesley struggling in the water, grasping a tree root, and Mary Emmeline—­nowhere!  In another minute he saw the strings of her pinafore appear on the surface a few yards beyond, and in yet another minute, with a swift rueful glance at his white flannels, he had plunged after her.  A disagreeable shock of finding himself out of his depths was, however, followed by contact with the child’s clothing, and clutching her firmly, a stroke or two brought him panting to the bank.  Here a gasp, a gurgle, and then a roar from Mary Emmeline, followed by a sympathetic howl from John Wesley, satisfied him that the danger was over.  Rescuing the boy from the tree root, he laid them both on the grass and contemplated them exercising their lungs with miserable satisfaction.  But here he found his own breathing impeded in addition to a slight faintness, and was suddenly obliged to sit down beside them, at which, by some sympathetic intuition, they both stopped crying.

Encouraged by this, Mr. Hamlin got them to laughing again, and then proposed a race home in their wet clothes, which they accepted, Mr. Hamlin, for respiratory reasons, lagging in their rear until he had the satisfaction of seeing them captured by the horrified Melinda in front of the kitchen, while he slipped past her and regained his own room.  Here he changed his saturated clothes, tried to rub away a certain chilliness that was creeping over him, and lay down in his dressing gown to miserable reflections.  He had nearly drowned the children and overexcited himself, in spite of his promise to the doctor!  He would never again be intrusted with the care of the former nor be believed by the latter!