one down. Then, forming the remainder of a letter S, it swept out again
and around a curve. Below this curve it tumbled over extensive and
dangerous shoals of rock. The rains had swollen it. And now the roar
from these shoals filled the air.

It was this roar, together with a chance feather that had got into the
whistle, that drowned out the frantic signal Tom Jennings tried to give.
For ahead of him a terrible thing was about to happen. The wounded bird,
frightened at the approach of the dog, rose, fluttered along the ground
toward the river, and stopped near the shore. And old Mac, his nose
telling him exactly what had occurred, was following with wagging tail
and pricked ears--following toward that sharp inward curve of the river,
where the banks had caved in and were very steep, and where the current
below made a sudden swerve, then swept outward again.

Again, after shaking it, Tom tried to blow his whistle; but the feather
had not been dislodged and the roar drowned out the muffled sound.

"Mac!" he yelled. "Mac! Come in!"

But the old fellow must not have heard. For Tom, hurrying along, his
face crimson, saw the bird rise once more and flutter over the
brink--and then, over the same brink, went Mac.

At first, when the man reached the river, he gave a gasp of relief. Mac
was swimming smoothly toward the bird which had floated into an eddy.
Maybe he would recover it there, and would not get caught in the
current.

Only for a moment, though, did the hope last. The bird began to float
more and more swiftly, and old Mac to swim more swiftly. Then the
current caught them, swept them far out and, with ever-increasing speed,
around the curve.

Tom Jennings's heart must have improved during these years of
comparative rest. Certainly he forgot that he had one now. By cutting
across the bottoms he could reach the next inward bulge of the river,
where it tumbled over the shoals. Even as he ran, in the hope that
someone would hear, he shouted:

"Help! Help here! Help!"

But the roar of the shoals filled the air, and the lofty, richly
foliaged trees rose above him as in scorn. Out of breath, he reached the
rocks and looked out over the foaming and tumbling waters. Then he made
Mac out, way out there. He was trying to crawl up on a rock, like a
white seal, and in his mouth he held something.

But only his paws caught hold. Then he slipped. Then he was lost from
sight, and appeared again, and was lost again. And Tom