T/ie Sandpipers 75 



but there are the stepping-stones just below. I 

 can get out there if I can see them through the 

 flood, and then I sha'n't have above twenty yards 

 to swim." 



While he said this he was pulling off his 

 clothes, and then he leapt exuberantly down the 

 bank to the water. Suddenly he stopped. 

 "How am I to bring him back?" he shouted. 



The angler was puzzled. To swim in a 

 current like that with a bird in your hand was 

 impossible without crushing it ; and a naked man 

 has no pockets. But necessity is the mother of 

 invention. Quick as thought he whipped a 

 casting-line off his hat, taking two flies off it and 

 sticking them into his coat : this he wound 

 round his friend's wrist, and making the end fast, 

 told him to tie it round the bird's leg if he 

 reached him. 



Carefully into the water his companion de- 

 scended, feeling with his hand for the first 

 stepping-stone ; then balancing himself between 

 this and the rushing water, he went on to the 

 second. It was teasing work, but he managed 

 the third, the fourth, the fifth, and then it was 



