ry one
of those fellows will do all he can to injure us."

"Well, all we can do is to keep our eyes open for them," was Randy's
reply. "Personally, I'm not afraid of any of them."

"They are all sneaks, and sneaks are always cowards," added Fred.

Having finished their outing at Cedar Lodge, the four Rovers and their
two chums had returned to Colby Hall, there to plunge once more into
their studies and their other duties as cadets. It was now early Spring,
and talk of baseball filled the air, but with so much rain outdoor
practice was practically impossible.

Then had come a ray of sunshine, and the four Rovers had ventured forth
that afternoon thinking to have a pleasant little outing. But the
sunshine had quickly passed, and now they found themselves out in a
furious storm and face to face with a situation that was as appalling as
it was dangerous.

CHAPTER III

TO THE RESCUE

"Don't leave us! Don't leave us!" shouted the man in the middle of the
river, as he saw Jack and the others crawling over the rocky shore up
the stream.

"We're not going to leave you," answered the young captain of the Colby
Hall cadets. "We are going to try to get to that tree and move it. Keep
up your courage."

"Oh, please hurry!" screamed the boy in the stream. "The water is
getting higher every minute, and it's flying right into our faces!"

"We'll do what we can," shouted back Randy, and the others added similar
words of encouragement.

It was no easy task for the Rovers to make their way over the wet rocks,
covered here and there with slippery grass and weeds. More than once one
or another went down, and Fred gave his left elbow a bump, while his
cousin Andy received a scraping of the shins.

Fortunately, the downpour of rain was abating, so that they had a chance
to dash the water from their caps and faces and see better what they
were trying to do. They soon reached the last of the rocks jutting out
from the shore, and here the four came again to a halt to view the
situation.

"There is no help for it--we've got to jump right in and trust to luck
to reach the other side," said Jack.

"Let us take hold of hands. Maybe we can brace ourselves better,"
suggested Randy.

This plan was carried out, and a moment later found the four cadets in
water up to their knees. So swift was the current they had all they
could do to keep their feet, and Andy would have gone down had not his
brother and Fred held him up.

It