xt moment he was in the water, swimming desperately toward the
point where he had seen the hands disappear.

Oh, he would never reach it! The water seemed to be some living thing,
pushing him; driving him back to the shore in spite of himself! His
muscles seemed weighted with lead, his sodden clothing dragged upon him
mercilessly! Oh, he would never reach her in time--he couldn't!

Then a wild, hot thought flashed through his consciousness, searing it
like a flame. Now was no time to say he could not! He must! _He must!_ A
life depended on his ability to reach that spot when the girl came to
the surface again--if indeed she ever did. Ah, perhaps what he had seen
had been the last time. Then he must dive, dive, dive until he found
her, even though he lose his own life in the attempt.

But no--there right before him so near that he could almost touch it, a
figure rose to the surface, struggling faintly.

With one supreme effort Allen forged ahead and grasped the skirt of the
girl's bathing suit as she sank for the last time beneath the surface.

"Thank God!" he murmured, as he raised the girl's head, with its mass of
tangled hair, above the water. "Oh, thank God!"

As he turned and started to swim slowly back to shore with his burden,
he almost ran into the other three boys who had followed close upon his
heels.

"Oh, you've got her, have you?" said Frank, unutterable gladness in his
voice. "I was sure you would be too late."

"It may be yet," said Roy, "if we don't get her to shore pretty quick.
Here, let me take her, old man--you're all tuckered out."

Allen willingly released his burden, and they swam as quickly as they
could to the shore.

They found the girls waiting for them, with white, strained faces.

"Oh, oh!" cried Grace, as they lifted the poor little inert body on to
the bank. "Oh, do you suppose she is dead?"

"Well, she will be if we don't hurry pretty fast," said Betty, her voice
trembling but determined. "Boys, look about and see if you can find
anything round and hard that we can use in place of a barrel. Oh, do
hurry! Mollie, you take her other arm and move it up and down--that's
the way--hard--hard."

Mollie did as she was told and in less time than seemed possible the
boys returned bringing with them part of a fallen log. This Betty
declared was the very thing.

For half an hour they worked over the unconscious form and more than
once during that time, they had almost given up hope of