cious, and Ruth had to bear her weight up, while treading water,
until she could dash the drops from her eyes. There was the lifebuoy
not ten yards away. She struck out for it with one hand, while towing
Mary with the other. Long before the steamer had been stopped and a boat
lowered and manned, Ruth and her burden reached the great ring, and the
girls were comparatively safe.

Tom Cameron came in the boat, having forced himself in with the crew,
and it was he who hauled Mary Cox over the gunwale, and then aided Ruth
into the boat.

"That's the second time you've saved that girl from drowning, Ruth,"
he gasped. "The first time was last Fall when you and I hauled her out
of the hole in the ice on Triton Lake. And now she would have gone down
and stayed down if you hadn't dived for her. Now! don't you ever do
it again!" concluded the excited lad.

Had Ruth not been so breathless she must have laughed at him; but there
really was a serious side to the adventure. Mary Cox did not recover
her senses until after they were aboard the steamer. Ruth was taken
in hand by a stewardess, undressed and put between blankets, and her
clothing dried and made presentable before the steamer docked at the
head of the lake.

As Tom Cameron had said, Mary Cox had fallen through the ice early in
the previous Winter, and Ruth had aided in rescuing her; The Fox had
never even thanked the girl from the Red Mill for such aid. And now
Ruth shrank from meeting her and being thanked on this occasion. Ruth
had to admit to herself that she looked forward with less pleasure to
the visit to the seashore with Heavy because Mary Cox was to be of the
party. She could not like The Fox, and she really had ample reason.

The other girls ran into the room where Ruth was and reported when Mary
became conscious, and how the doctor said that she would never have come
up to the surface again, she had taken so much water into her lungs, had
not Ruth grasped her. They had some difficulty in bringing The Fox to
her senses.

"And aren't you the brave one, Ruthie Fielding!" cried Heavy. "Why,
Mary Cox owes her life to you--she actually does _this_ time. Before,
when you and Tom Cameron helped her out of the water, she acted nasty
about it----"

"Hush, Jennie!" commanded Ruth. "Don't say another word about it. If
I had not jumped into the lake after Mary, somebody else would."

"Pshaw!" cried Heavy, "you can't get out of it that way. And I'm
glad it happened.