was hurt.
Twice he turned his eyes despairingly toward Chad, and the boy would
have leaped in the water to save him if Tom had not caught him by the
arm.

"Tell him to git to shore," he said quickly, and Chad motioned, when
Jack looked again, and the dog obediently made for land. Old Joel was
calling tenderly:

"Come on, Jack; come on, ole feller!"

Chad watched with a thumping heart. Once Jack went under, but gave no
sound. Again he disappeared, and when he came up he gave a cry for
help, but when he heard Chad's answering cry he fought on stroke by
stroke until Chad saw old Joel reach out from the bushes and pull him
in. And Chad could see that one of his hind legs hung limp. Then the
raft swung around the curve out of sight.

Behind, the whole crowd rushed down to the water's edge. Jack tried to
get away from old Joel and scramble after Chad on his broken leg, but
old Joel held him, soothing him, and carried him back to the house,
where the old "yarb doctor" put splints on the leg and bound it up
tightly, just as though it had been the leg of a child. Melissa was
crying and the old man put his hand on her head.

"He'll be all right, honey. That leg'll be as good as the other one in
two or three weeks. It's all right, little gal."

Melissa stopped weeping with a sudden gulp. But when Jack was lying in
the kitchen by the fire alone, she slipped in and put her arm around
the dog's head, and, when Jack began to lick her face, she bent her own
head down and sobbed.

CHAPTER 5.

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

On the way to God's Country at last! Already Chad had schooled himself
for the parting with Jack, and but for this he must--little man that he
was--have burst into tears. As it was, the lump in his throat stayed
there a long while, but it passed in the excitement of that mad race
down the river. The old Squire had never known such a tide.

"Boys," he said, gleefully, "we're goin' to make a REcord on this
trip--you jus' see if we don't. That is, if we ever git thar alive."

All the time the old man stood in the middle of the raft yelling
orders. Ahead was the Dillon raft, and the twin brothers--the giants,
one mild, the other sour-faced--were gesticulating angrily at each
other from bow and stern. As usual, they were quarrelling. On the
Turner raft, Dolph was at the bow, the school-master at the stern,
while Rube--who was cook--and Chad, in spite of a stinging pain in one
foot, built an oven of stones, wher