The Adventures of a Modest Man

Jones polished his nose with the mosquito salve.

"How do you know what she wanted my picture for?" he asked, annoyed. "Perhaps she means to keep it for herself – if that grey-eyed one lets her alone – "

"Let the grey-eyed one alone yourself," retorted Ellis, warmly.

"You'd better, too. Any expert in human character can tell you which of those girls means mischief."

"If you think you're an expert – " began Ellis, irritated, then stopped short. Jones followed his eyes.

"Look at that stream," said Ellis, dropping his rod against the lean-to. "There's been a cloudburst in the mountains. There's no rain here, but look at that stream! Yellow and bank-full! Hark! Hear the falls. I have an idea the woods will be awash below us in an hour."

They descended to the ledge which an hour ago had overhung the stream. Now the water was level with it, lapping over it, rising perceptibly in the few seconds they stood there. Alders and willows along the banks, almost covered, staggered in the discolored water; drift of all sorts came tumbling past, rotten branches, piles of brush afloat, ferns and shrubs uprooted; the torrent was thick with flakes of bark and forest mould and green-leaved twigs torn from the stream-side.

From the lower reaches a deer came galloping toward the ridges; a fox stole furtively into the open, hesitated, and slunk off up the valley.

And now the shallow gorge began to roar under the rising flood; tumbling castles of piled-up foam whirled into view; the amber waves washed through the fringing beech growth, slopping into hollows, setting the dead leaves afloat. A sucking sound filled the woods; millions of tiny bubbles purred in the shallow overflow; here and there dead branches stirred, swung and floated.

"Our camp is going to be an island pretty soon," observed Ellis; "just look at – "

But Jones caught him by the arm. "What is that?" he demanded shakily. "Are there things like that in these woods?"

At the same instant Ellis caught sight of something in midstream bearing down on them in a smother of foam – an enormous lizard-like creature floundering throat-deep in the flood.

"What is it, Ellis? Look! It's got a tail ten feet long! Great Heaven, look at it!"

"I see it," said Ellis, hoarsely. "I never saw such a thing – "

"It's opening its jaws!" gasped Jones.

Ellis, a trifle white around the cheekbones, stared in frozen silence at the fearsome creature as it swept down on them. A crested wave rolled it over; four fearsome claws waved in the air; then the creature righted itself and swung in toward the bank.

"Upon my word!" stammered Ellis; "it's part of their theatrical property. Lord! how real it looked out yonder. I knew it couldn't be alive, but – Jones, see how my hands are shaking. Would you believe a man could be rattled like that?"

"Believe it? I should say I could! Look at the thing wabbling there in the shallows as though it were trying to move its flippers! Look at it, Ellis; see how it seems to wriggle and paddle – "

The words froze on his lips; the immense creature was moving; the scaled claws churned the shallows; a spasm shook the head; the jaws gaped.

"Help!" said a very sweet and frightened voice.

Ellis got hold of one claw, Jones the other, almost before they comprehended – certainly before, deep in the scaly creature's maw, they discovered the frightened but lovely features of the grey-eyed girl who had snap-shot them.

"Please pull," she said; "I can't swim in this!"

Almost hysterically they soothed her as they tugged and steered the thing into the flooded forest.

"Mr. Ellis – please —please don't pull quite so hard," she called out.

"Oh, did I hurt you?" he cried so tenderly that, even in the shock of emotions, Jones was ashamed of him.

"No, you don't hurt me, Mr. Ellis; I'm all right inside here, but I – I – you must not pull this papier-mâché dragon to pieces – "

"What do I care for the dragon if you are in danger?" cried Ellis, excitedly.

But it was a frightened and vexed voice that answered almost tearfully: "If you pull too hard on the pasteboard legs something dreadful may happen. I – this dragon is – is about the only clothing I have on!"

Ellis dropped the flipper, seized it again, and gazed into the scared eyes of Jones.

"For Heaven's sake, go easy," he hissed, "or the thing will come apart!"

Jones, in a cold perspiration, stood knee-deep in the flood, not daring to touch the flipper again.

"You help here," he whispered, hoarsely. "If she stands up, now, you can support her to camp, can't you?"

Ellis bent over and looked into the gaping jaws of Fafnir the Dragon.

"Miss Sandys," he said seriously, "do you think you could get on your hind – on your feet?"

The legs of the monster splashed, groping for the bottom; Ellis passed his arm around the scaly body; Fafnir arose, rather wabbly, and took one dripping step forward.

"I fancy we can manage it now, Jones," said Ellis, cheerfully, turning around; but Jones did not answer; he was running away, dashing and splashing down the flooded forest. Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded boat, sat two people and a placid swan.

"Good Lord!" faltered Ellis, as the dragon turned with a little shriek. "Is the whole Summer School being washed away?"

"No," she said excitedly, "but the dam broke. Helen and Professor Rawson tried to save the swan-boat – we were giving tableaux from "Lohengrin" and "The Rheingold" – and – oh! oh! oh! such a torrent came! Helen – there she is in armour – Helen tried to paddle the boat, but the swans pulled the other way, and they flapped so wildly that Helen called for help. Then one of the Rhine-maidens – Professor Rawson – waded in and got aboard, but the paddle broke and they were adrift. Then one of those horrid swans got loose, and everybody screamed, and the water rose higher and higher, and nobody helped anybody, so, so – as I swim well, I jumped in without waiting to undress – you see I had been acting the dragon, Fafnir, and I went in just as I was; but the papier-mâché dragon kept turning turtle with me, and first I knew I was being spun around like a top."

There was a silence; they stood watching Jones scrambling after the swan-boat, which had come to grief in shallow water. Professor Rawson, the Rhine-maiden, gave one raucous and perfunctory shriek as Jones floundered alongside – for the garb of the normal Rhine-daughter is scanty, and Professor Rawson's costume, as well as her maidenly physique, was almost anything except redundant.

As for Helen, sometime known as brown-eyes, she rose to her slim height, all glittering in tin armour, and gave Jones a smile of heavenly gratitude that shot him through and through his Norfolk jacket.

"Don't look!" said Professor Rawson, in a voice which, between the emotions of recent terror and present bashfulness, had dwindled to a squeak. "Don't look; I'm going to jump." And jump she did, taking to the water with a trifle less grace than the ordinary Rhine-maiden.

There was a spattering splash, a smothered squawk which may have been emitted by the swan, and the next moment Professor Rawson was churning toward dry land, her wreath of artificial seaweed over one eye, her spectacles glittering amid her dank tresses.

Jones looked up at brown-eyes balancing in the bow of the painted boat.

"I can get you ashore quite dry – if you don't mind," he said.

She considered the water; she considered Jones; she looked carefully at the wallowing Rhine-daughter.

"Are you sure you can?" she asked.

"Perfectly certain," breathed Jones.

"I am rather heavy – "

The infatuated man laughed.

"Well, then, I'll carry the swan," she said calmly; and, seizing that dignified and astonished bird, she walked demurely off the prow of the gaudy boat into the arms of Jones.