on his other shoulder, but following scout law, he
stopped not to meditate, but pushed the boat off to the rescue.

There was no sign of life, at least to Billie's fear-struck eyes, in the
limp, dripping figure which Stanley laid so tenderly in the bottom of the
boat.

"Quit shaking like that, Bill," he ordered in husky sternness. "You row to
the island as fast as you can."

On the way across he knelt beside her, applying first-aid methods, while
Billie rowed blindly, trying to choke back the dry sobs that would rise in
his throat, and the hot, boyish tears that blinded him every time he
looked at Kit's face, and thought of the Mother Bird. It did not seem as
if it could possibly be Kit, his dauntless, self-reliant pal, lying there
so white and still. When they reached the shore of the island, Stanley
carried her in his arms to his own cot.

"Hadn't I better go for help?" Billie asked.

"There isn't time," Stanley answered, shortly. "Warm those blankets, get
me the bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and unlace her boots."

All the time he was talking, he worked over Kit as swiftly and tenderly as
any nurse, but it seemed hours to Billie before there came at last a
half-sobbing sigh from her lips, as the agonized lungs caught their first
breath of air, and she opened her eyes.

Neither Stanley nor Billie spoke as she stared from one to the other in
slow surprise, taking in the interior of the tent, and Stanley's dripping
clothing, and then she said, the most comical thing at such a time:

"Billie, did I lose the crabapples, or haven't I gotten them yet?"

"So that's what you were after," Billie cried wrathfully, "poking up the
river by yourself in that beastly little boat that turns over if you look
at it, and you can swim about as well as a tree-toad. If it hadn't been
for Stan here, you'd be absolutely drowned dead by now."

The color stole back into Kit's face. Perhaps if he had sympathized with
her, she might have broken down, but as it was, she looked up into
Stanley's eyes almost appealingly.

"I'm awfully sorry," she began, but Stanley stopped her with a laugh, as
he rolled her up tighter in another blanket.

"I'm the doctor here, now," he said, "and you'll have to mind. I guess if
I carry you, we can get you home somehow. The sooner you're in bed, the
better."

Mrs. Robbins and the girls were just coming along the road when they
beheld the startling procession coming up from the river bank, Sta