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and smaller. Someone had loosened all thepins which held the raft together! Bit by bit it was coming apart.
    â€œUncle Edmund!” shouted Caddie, red with surprise and rage. Uncle Edmund lay back in the canoe and laughed. In a flash Caddie knew why Uncle Edmund had taken so long to fetch his game bag. The logs on which Nero stood came loose, and the old sheepdog plunged into the water and began to swim for shore. There were only three or four logs left together now and it took only an instant for them to drift apart. Caddie went down with a great splash, and her shining head disappeared beneath the water like a quenched flame. Presently she came up again, sputtering and blowing, and caught desperately at the nearest log. When she felt its rough surface under her fingers, she stopped struggling and clasped her arms about it. She was used to the feel of water up to her neck, if only she had something to hold onto. But she was angry. It took a good deal to arouse Caddie from her good nature, but every red-head’s temper has its limitations, and Caddie’s had been reached.
    â€œOh! Oh! Oh!” she sputtered, too angry to find any words.
    Now that Uncle Edmund had had his little joke, he began to be worried. He brought the canoe around and helped Caddie into it. “Say, Caddie,” he said, “I never thought that raft would come apart so quickly. Honestly, I just wanted to scare you a little.



You don’t mind getting a little wet, do you? Just for fun?”
    Caddie sat in the bottom of the canoe straight and stiff. Streams of water ran down all over her and made a puddle around her. Her face was pale and her hazel eyes flashed cold fire, but still she couldn’t find a word to say to relieve her bottled indignation.
    â€œOh, say, Caddie, don’t take it so hard,” coaxed Uncle Edmund. “It was just a joke. Listen now, I’ll give you that silver dollar I promised; but say, don’t tell your mother, Caddie.”
    At last Caddie exploded.
    â€œAre you trying to bribe a Woodlawn, Uncle Edmund?” she shouted. After everything else, to attempt to bribe a Woodlawn was heaping infamy upon infamy.
    â€œOh, no! no!” protested Uncle Edmund anxiously. “It’s just a gift, Caddie.”
    â€œI wouldn’t take it,” cried Caddie. “I wouldn’t take it if it was the last silver dollar in the world! I wouldn’t——”
    â€œNow, now, Caddie,” urged Uncle Edmund. “Here we are almost to shore. Now, listen, you just take off your dress and dry it in the sun, and I’ll go back and collect the pieces of the raft. That’s a good, sensible little girl.”
    Caddie stepped out of the canoe with the haughty air of a scornful but dripping princess.
    â€œYou do as I say, Caddie,” urged Uncle Edmund anxiously, “and I’ll be back in half an hour with the raft.” Caddie shook herself like a wet dog. Angry as she was, she realized that it was better to dry herself in the sheltered, sunny curve of the beach than to walk home through fields and woods in her dripping clothes. She wrung out her dress and petticoat and hung them on the bushes. Then she lay down in the warm sand. Presently Nero, who had made his way along the shore, came and sat beside her, drying his own coat in the sun.
    Uncle Edmund was gone a long, long time. When he returned at last, Caddie was sitting in the sun in a dress that was wrinkled but dry. She had had time to think over her adventure, and her usual good humor had got the better of her anger. She burst out laughing when she saw Uncle Edmund’s red, perspiring face. Poor Uncle Edmund had paid for his misdeeds.
    â€œBy golly, Caddie, that was a hard job. I’ve had my comeuppance-with, for once, my dear. But they’re all here. I got every one.” Behind the canoe he was towing the pieces of the raft, bound together with a rope which the children always kept in the bottom of