floating
oar. He had made some allowance for the current, and when in another
moment he had reached what seemed to him to be near the scene of the
catastrophe, yet a little farther down stream, he trod water and looked
about. Under the bluff to the right Cloud was crawling from the river.
West was gone from sight. About him ran the stream, and save for its
noise no sound came to him, and nothing rewarded his eager, searching
gaze save a branch that floated slowly by. With despair at his heart, he
threw up his arms and sank with wide-open eyes, peering about him in the
hazy depths. Above him the surface water bubbled and eddied; below him
was darkness; around him was only green twilight. For a moment he
tarried there, and then arose to the surface and dashed the water from
his eyes and face. And suddenly, some thirty feet away, an arm clad in a
white sweater sleeve came slowly into sight.

With a frantic leap through the water Joel sped toward it. A bare head
followed the upstretched arm; two wild, terror-stricken eyes opened and
looked despairingly at the peaceful blue heavens; the white lips moved,
but no sound came from them. And then, just as the eyes closed and just
as the body began to sink, as slowly as it had arisen, and for the last
time, Joel reached it.

There was no time left in which to pause and select a hold of the
drowning boy, and Joel caught savagely at his arm and struck toward the
bank, and the inert body came to the surface like a water-logged plank.

"Clausen!" shouted Joel. "Clausen! Can you hear? Brace up! Strike out
with your right hand, and don't grab me! Do you hear?"

But there was no answer. Clausen was like stone in the water. Joel cast
a despairing glance toward the bluff. Then his eyes brightened, for
there sliding down the bank he saw a crowd of boys, and as he looked
another on the bluff threw down a coil of new rope that shone in the
afternoon sunlight as it fell and was seized by some one in the
throng below.

Nerved afresh, Joel took a firm grasp on Clausen's elbow and struck out
manfully for shore. It was hard going, and when a bare dozen long
strokes had been made his burden so dragged him down that he was obliged
to stop, and, floundering desperately to keep the white face above
water, take a fresh store of breath into his aching lungs. Then drawing
the other boy to him so that his weight fell on his back, he brought one
limp arm about his shoulder, and holding it there with