the exhausted swimmer into the boat, Charlton and Gray
dived. But the water was twenty feet deep, the divers were utterly out of
breath with rowing, and their diving was of no avail. They kept trying
until long after all hope had died out of their hearts. At last Charlton
climbed back into the boat, and sat down. Then Gray got in. Westcott was
so numb and exhausted from staying in the water so long that he could not
get in, but he held to the boat desperately, and begged them to help him.

"Help him in," said Charlton to Gray. "I can't."

"I'd like to help him out ef he wuz in, mighty well. I can't kill a
drownin' man, but blamed ef I gin him a leetle finger of help. I'd jest
as soon help a painter outen the water when I know'd he'd swaller the
fust man he come to."

But Charlton got up and reached a hand to the sinking Westcott. He
shut his eyes while he pulled him in, and was almost sorry he had
saved him. Let us not be too hard on Albert. He was in the first
agony of having reached a hand to save little Katy and missed her. To
come so near that you might have succeeded by straining a nerve a
little more somewhere--that is bitterest of all. If Westcott had only
held on a minute!

It was with difficulty that Albert and Gray rowed to the shore, where
Plausaby met them, and persuaded them to change their clothes. They were
both soon on the shore again, where large fires were blazing, and the old
boat that had failed to save little Katy alive, was now in use to recover
her body. There is no more hopeless and melancholy work than dragging for
the body of a drowned person. The drag moves over the bottom; the man who
holds the rope, watching for the faintest sensation of resistance in the
muscles of his arm, at last feels something drawing against the drag,
calls to the oarsmen to stop rowing, lets the line slip through his
fingers till the boat's momentum is a little spent, lest he should lose
his hold, then he draws on his line gently, and while the boat drifts
back, he reverently, as becomes one handling the dead, brings the drag to
the surface, and finds that its hooks have brought up nothing but
water-weeds, or a waterlogged bough. And when at last, after hours of
anxious work, the drag brings the lifeless body to the surface, the
disappointment is bitterest of all. For all the time you have seemed to
be seeking the drowned person, and now at last you have got--what?

It was about eleven o'clock when they first bega