e, distant at least fifty feet.

It was all he could do to keep his head above water, struggling as he
was with the fear of a terrible death before his eyes. His two comrades
were running up and down on the shore; not that they were such arrant
cowards but what they would have been willing to do almost anything to
help Joel; but unfortunately they had lost their heads in the sudden
shock; and as Toby afterwards contemptuously said, "acted like so many
chickens after the ax had done its foul work."

Jack sized up the situation like a flash.

"Toby, you get one of those boards over yonder, and come out to help me
if I'm in trouble, understand?" he jerked out, even as the flivver came
to a sudden stop, and he was bounding over the side regardless of any
exit.

"All right, Jack; you bet I will!" Toby shouted, following suit.

Jack began to shed his outer clothes as he ran swiftly forward. First
his cap went, and then his coat. He had low shoes on so that he was able
to detach them with a couple of quick jerks, and at the loss of the
laces.

Two seconds, when at the verge of the water, sufficed for him to get rid
of his trousers, and then, he went in with a rush.

Toby meanwhile had tried to follow suit even as he made for the boards
in question. It had been just like Jack to glimpse these in the
beginning, while those other fellows apparently did not know a board was
within half a mile.

Seeing what Toby meant to do, the two swimmers followed suit, so that
presently the whole three of them had each picked up a plank, and were
pushing out with it.

Jack had plunged ahead, swimming in any old way, since his one object
just then was speed, and not style. He could not have done better had he
been up against a swarm of rivals working for a prize. Well, there
_was_ a prize dangling there in plain sight. A precious human life
was at stake, and unless he could arrive in time poor Joel might go
down, never to come up again in his senses.

He had already been under once, and through his desperate efforts
succeeded in reaching the surface of the agitated water again. Even as
Jack started swimming, after getting in up to his neck, the drowning boy
vanished again.

Jack swam on, trying to increase his pace, if such a thing were
possible. He must get on the spot without the waste of a second. Joel
would likely come to the surface again, but battling more feebly against
the threatening fate. If he went down a third time it w