the running-board was an extra tire, fully inflated. She seized the
shaking man by the hand.

"Get a knife! get a knife!" she commanded. "Haven't you a knife?"

"Ye-yes," he gasped, fumbling in his pocket.

"Come on!" she ordered, and ran up the path to the road where the
automobile stood.

He came, opening the knife as he ran. The girls in the car were
shrieking now. Nancy did not even look at them; it is doubtful if they
saw her. She pointed to the tire and the chauffeur understood.

He started to cut the lashings recklessly; but she stopped him with a
cry. The stout cord was what she wanted. Quickly she looped it around
the tire and he seized it and ran back to the pond's edge.

The imperiled boy was half-way through the race; the brown current
curled about him, trying to bear him down.

With a shout the chauffeur threw the tire into the water ahead of the
boy. The latter had sufficient presence of mind to seize it, and the
chauffeur dragged him toward the bank.

But it was too steep, and the boy was too much exhausted to climb out
without help.

"You'll--you'll have to help me!" gasped the boy in the water.

But the man could not both cling to the rope and lend the unfortunate
victim of the accident a hand. Nor was there a tree or bush to which he
might tie the rope.

The boy had hooked one arm over the improvised life-preserver. But his
head had sunk low on his breast. He was almost completely exhausted, and
the current, tugging at his legs, must soon sweep him from his insecure
hold.

CHAPTER III

ON THE WAY TO PINEWOOD

For half a minute Nancy Nelson had been inactive. Her quick mind had
suggested the way the boy in the millrace might be saved; but the
chauffeur of the automobile was the instrument by which the helpless
victim's course down the current had been retarded.

But now it looked as though he would be lost, after all. Below the race
the water was most boisterous--and there were many jagged rocks. If he
was drawn through the race he would be seriously injured on the rocks,
if not drowned.

The bright-minded girl saw all this in those few seconds. She scrambled
down the steep bank, clutching at the chauffeur's ankle as she went.

"You'll have to hold both of us for a minute!" she cried.

"Go ahead! I understand!" he returned, swaying his body back as he clung
to the stout cord, and digging his heels into the bank.

Nancy hung over the swift current and stretched her right