This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LIONEL CLARENCE ESCAPES
167

her breath hysterically, and battling several minutes for air, before she could call for help.

A hurried search was made. But the patient was not to be found. The household was aroused, Leena was sent helter-skelter off for Doctor Ridley, and the search was extended to the outbuildings and the garden.

By this time word had flown about that the Preacher's son had made his escape, in delirium, and a sudden little wave of commotion swept through the slumberous town. All business came to a standstill; searching parties were hurriedly formed, while every nook and corner of the Sampson household was being looked over and over, ineffectually, for the third and fourth time.

It was old Captain Steiner who reported that he had seen two boys in the river, just above the swimming-hole, and thereby caused a precipitous migration across commons and vacant lots and hay-fields, down to the shadowy river-bank, where nearly all Chamboro arrived, just in time to see the presumably delirious Lionel Clarence take a neat back-dive off the spring-board.