"No! No!" cried the girl, in a sudden panic of fear. "You can't swim,
and suppose something should happen and the boat moved off before you
could climb into it? You'd be washed off the rock in a minute, and I--I
couldn't stand it alone!"

"The way she's millin' around on the rock, I'm afraid she'll rip her
bottom out. She's leakin' already. There's more water in here now, than
when we started to bail."

"Most of it splashed in over the side--see, when the waves break."

"Maybe," assented the Texan, carelessly, but in the darkness he stooped
and with his fingers located a crack where the planking had been forced
apart, through which the river water gushed copiously. Without a word he
stepped to the girl's saddle and took down the rope. "We've got to get
off here," he insisted, "where'd we be if some big tree like the one
that knocked me cold would drift down on us?" As he talked he passed the
loop of the rope over his head and made it fast about his shoulders, and
allowing ten or twelve feet of slack, knotted it securely to a ring in
the end of the boat. "There, now I can get onto the rock an' by using
the pole for a crow-bar, I can pry us off, then if I get left I'll just
trail along on this rope until I can pull myself in."

The man's first effort resulted only in breaking a couple of feet from
the end of his lever, but finally, by waiting to heave on his bar at the
moment a wave pounded the side, he had the satisfaction of seeing the
craft move slowly, inch by inch toward the deeper water. A moment later
the man thanked his stars that he had thought of the rope, for without
warning the boat lifted on a huge wave and slipped from the rock where
it was instantly seized by the current and whirled down stream with a
force that jerked him from his feet. Taking a deep breath, he clutched
the line, and easily pulled himself to the boat, where the girl assisted
him over the side.

They were entirely at the mercy of the river, now, for in the suddenness
of their escape from the rock, the Texan had been unable to save the
pole. Groping in the water for his boot he began to bail earnestly, and
as Alice attempted to locate the other boot her hand came in contact
with the inrushing stream of water. "Oh, it _is_ leaking!" she cried in
dismay. "I can feel it pouring through the bottom!"

"Yes, I found the leak back there on the rock. If we both bail for all
we're worth maybe we can keep her afloat."

Alice found the other