lace
is likely to cave in."

"Then you certainly _would_ get a ducking," added Frank.

"Pooh! I guess I know what I'm about," said the girl. "I'm no baby."

"You're acting like one," growled Dave. "That place is dangerous."

"It's not, Mr. Smartie!" cried Bess, and she stamped her foot in anger.

And just as though that had been the signal for which it had been
waiting, several square yards of the steep bank, with the tree she was
clinging to, slumped down into the river.

The girls screamed, while the boys bounded forward toward the spot where
Bessie had disappeared.

"Oh, Dave!" cried Wyn. "Save her! save her! She can't swim very well.
She will be drowned!"

CHAPTER VII

THE STORM BREAKS

Dave Shepard, followed by the other "Busters," leaped down to the edge
of the water before they came to the spot where the bank had caved. They
feared that by tramping along the edge they might bring down even a
greater avalanche than had fallen with the unfortunate Bessie.

"There she is, fellows!" cried Dave. "She's hanging to the tree!"

"I see her!" returned Ferd Roberts.

"Oh, Dave! we can't reach her," cried another of the Busters.

"I wish the professor was here," cried Ferd. "He'd know what to do."

"My goodness!" returned Dave, throwing off his coat and cap. "I don't
need anybody to tell me what to do. _We've got to go after her!_"

He tore off the low shoes he wore, pitched them after his cap and coat,
and leaped into the water. The current tugged hard at the end of the
island, and Bessie and the uprooted sapling were being carried out
farther and farther into the stream.

The girl had not screamed. Indeed, she had been startled to such a
degree when she went down that she had really not breath enough for
speech as yet.

The boys were "right on the job," and only a few seconds elapsed from
the moment the bank gave away until that in which Dave Shepard sprang
into the river.

Some of the roots of the tree still clung to the shore. A part of the
loosened earth had fallen upon these roots and so the tree was anchored.
But Bessie was clinging to the hole of the sapling quite fifteen feet
from the edge of the solid beach.

"Catch hold of hands, boys!" commanded Dave. "Make a chain! Give me one
hand, Ferd! The current is tugging me right off my feet!"

His four mates obeyed orders promptly. Dave was captain of the Busters,
as Wyn was of the Go-Ahead Club; and the boys had learned to obey their
c