ded on his feet he stood beside
the imprisoned diver. The latter was aware of something unusual going
on, and turned to stare at Joe through the glass of his helmet. Joe
could not see the man's face in that light, but he knew it must show
deadly fear.

In a trice Joe decided what he must do. It was not easy to stay beneath
the water, for his natural buoyancy had a tendency to force him up, and
his first act, after landing and feeling himself shooting back toward
the surface, was to reach out and grasp the heavy rope that he knew was
fastened about the diver's waist. There could be no harm to the diver
in this, Joe reasoned, since the men up above were putting a much
greater strain on the hempen cable. And by holding thus to the rope Joe
prevented himself from going up.

Though the diver must have been greatly astonished to see a young man
in a pair of old trousers and a ragged shirt suddenly appear beside him
in the reservoir, Tom Rand could show nothing of what he felt. Talking
was out of the question.

Suddenly the water about Joe and the diver was illuminated, and Joe
looked to see the electric, waterproof light glowing. The diver had
turned the switch to give his rescuer every chance to work.

And in that light Joe saw what the trouble was. One of the diver's
leaden-weighted feet was caught in the valve of the pipe in such a way
that he was held a prisoner. No wonder the men up above had not been
able to pull loose Tom Rand. To do so they would have had to pull apart
his diving suit, or at least pull off one leg of it, and this would
have meant drowning the diver.

Joe, holding to the heavy rope, was a few feet off the bottom of the
reservoir now. To work effectively he must stand directly on the
bottom, and he must be held down in some way. When a diver makes a
descent he is pulled down by shoes which are heavily weighted with
lead. Otherwise the buoyancy of the diving dress, filled as it is with
air, would send him to the surface. And in Joe's case his human body,
with his lungs inflated with air, would have come up after his dive had
he not held himself down. But he must seek a new means of hold, if he
was to work to release the unfortunate man.

Joe looked down at the water-covered ground, now illuminated by the
electric light. He saw just what he needed. Near the outlet pipe, in
the valve of which the diver's foot was caught, was an old stump. There
was a root exposed--a root with a sort of loop--and und