, too."

Lucy turned and walked deliberately away down the path toward the
boat-landing.

"I'm bungling it," thought Jeff, uncomfortably, and stood still,
waiting. "Perhaps I ought to have let Evelyn tackle the business, after
all."

Lucy walked out upon the landing, where the _Butterfly_ swung lazily in
the wash of the current. Suddenly, quite without warning, she ran the
length of the little pier and leaped for the boat. It had looked an easy
distance, but as she made the jump she realised too late that the
interval of water between pier and boat was wider than it had looked in
the moonlight. With a scream and a splash she went down, and an instant
later Jeff, dashing down the pier, saw only a widening circle gleaming
faintly on the water.

He flung off his coat, tore off his low shoes, and waited. The
river-bottom shelved suddenly just where the pier ended, and the depth
was fully twenty feet. Moment after moment went by while he watched
breathlessly for the appearance of the girl at the surface. The current
was strong a few feet out, and his gaze swept the water for some
distance. When he caught sight of the break in the surface which told
him what he wanted, it was even farther down-stream than he had
calculated.

"I mustn't risk this alone," he thought, quickly, and gave several
ringing shouts for Just, whom he knew to be only two or three hundred
yards up-shore. Then he made his plunge, swimming furiously to get below
the place where the girl's white-clad form had risen, that he might be
at hand when his chance came again.

The current helped him, and so did the moonlight on the water. It was in
the very centre of a glinting spot of light that Lucy came to the
surface the second time. Before she had sunk out of sight Jeff had her
by the skirts, and was working desperately to get her head above water.
She was struggling with all her fierce young strength, crazed with
fright and suffocation, and she continually dragged him under in her
blind attempts to pull herself up by him.

When he could get breath he shouted again, and after what seemed to him
an age, there came a response from two directions. Just running along
the river bank, and Doctor Churchill, plunging down the hill, saw, and
were coming to the rescue.

"Hold on! Hold on! I'm coming!" both shouted as they ran.

Doctor Churchill, having the easier course, reached the bank first.
Being clad only in his pajamas, he was unburdened by superfluous