ition. It refused to yield the fraction of an
inch. Rufus and Stephen joined the five men, and the augmented crew of
seven were putting all their strength on the rope when a cry went up
from the watchers on the bridge. The "dog" had loosened suddenly, and
the men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they were
stunned both by the surprise and by the shock of the blow, but in the
same moment the cry of the crowd swelled louder. Alcestis Crambry had
stolen, all unnoticed, to the rope, and had attempted to use his feeble
powers for the common good. When the blow came he fell backward, and,
making no effort to control the situation, slid over the bank and into
the water.

The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed audibly, but there
was no jeering from the bridge.

Stephen had seen Alcestis slip, and in the fraction of a moment had
taken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks behind him;
in a twinkling he was in the water, almost as soon as the boy himself.

"Doggoned idjut!" exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. "Wuth the hull
fool-family! If I hed n't 'a' be'n so old, I'd 'a' jumped in myself, for
you can't drownd a Wiley, not without you tie nail-kags to their head
an' feet an' drop 'em in the falls."

Alcestis, who had neither brains, courage, nor experience, had, better
still, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried swiftly down
the current; but, only fifty feet away, a long, slender log, wedged
between two low rocks on the shore, jutted out over the water, almost
touching its surface. The boy's clothes were admirably adapted to the
situation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the log
caught in the rags of Alcestis's coat and held him just seconds enough
to enable Stephen to swim to him, to seize him by the nape of the neck,
to lift him on the log, and thence to the shore. It was a particularly
bad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do but to lower ropes
and drag the drenched men to the high ground above.

Alcestis came to his senses in ten or fifteen minutes, and seemed as
bright as usual, with a kind of added swagger at being the central
figure in a dramatic situation.

"I wonder you hed n't stove your brains out, when you landed so turrible
suddent on that rock at the foot of the bank," said Mr. Wiley to him.

"I should, but I took good care to light on my head," responded
Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old Kennebec that h