violently to the deck. The stripling who had
accepted the traditional shilling brushed the crowd aside and knocked
down the slanderer of all women--and of his queen!

"Take that back!" Philip breathed, not shouted, as one less angry might
have done. "You will not? You shall!"

Burroughs sprang to his feet instantly and returned the blow valiantly.
He did not draw his Colt's as frontiersmen were prone to do, for he
thought that a knock-down fight would show that a man must not stand too
much on dignity on the upper Missouri. Besides, the lad was English,
therefore to be punished.

At once the trifling affair widened into a promiscuous scrimmage of
recruits against civilians. In the excitement Winifred, frightened at
the uproar, came searching for her brother, just as Danvers again
delivered a blow that sent Burroughs reeling against the deck railing.
It was not strong enough to withstand the collision and the aggressor in
the fight barely kept his balance as the wood broke. But Winifred,
pushed forward by the struggling men, clutched at the air and dropped
into the whirling yellow river far below.

"My God!" groaned Charlie, springing after her. But his leap was
preceded by that of Philip Danvers.

The alarm was given; the engines reversed. As the roustabouts jumped to
lower the boats the men pressed forward, but the mate beat them back
and got the crew to work.

Nowhere could the soft curls be seen. Charlie, nearly drawn into the
revolving paddles, was taken into the boat. Presently the watchers saw
Winifred's little red dress caught on an uprooted sapling. Tree and
child were in the center of the current. While so much debris stayed
near the shore or drifted on the shallow sand-bars, this one tree with
its human freight hurried on.

"Save her! Save her!" sobbed Scar Faced Charlie, kept by force from
jumping again into the stream. "_Let me go!_" he roared.

"No, Charlie," said the mate firmly. "We're goin' to pick up yer sister
an' Danvers. No need fer yeh to risk yer life again. That English lad is
goin' to turn the trick."

Philip swam on, strongly, while vociferous ejaculations reached him.

"That feller's got sand!" he heard Joe say, as he dexterously avoided a
whirlpool and dodged a snag.

"He's a fool!"

"He'll drown, an' the girl, too!"

"It's caught--he'll overtake her!"

A devilfish-like snag held tree and burden. With a burst of speed Philip
swam alongside. Winifred? Thank God! Still alive,