“I’m going to help him!” exclaimed Frank, suddenly.
He stopped on the bank and flung off his coat, then started to untie his shoelaces in order to kick his light shoes aside.
But in the meantime Joe had managed to catch at a projecting rock with his free hand, so Chet put a restraining hand on Frank’s arm.
For a moment it seemed that the current would make Joe lose his grip, but he clung to the rock and drew himself closer until he had wrapped his arm about it. The rest of the rock was wide and flat and lay just a few inches beneath the surface.
Slowly, Joe clambered on to this precarious refuge, dragging the half-conscious boy with him. The rock was big enough to provide foothold for them both.
The boy was unable to help himself, as he was limp and weak from his experience. Just as he was almost on the rock Joe lost his grip on the lad’s collar for a second, and the current whirled him to one side. The lad toppled backward, striking his head on the rock, but Joe made a frantic grab for him, at imminent risk of precipitating himself into the water again.
His fingers closed about the back of the lad’s shirt and he managed to haul the boy to safety once more.
But the blow had rendered the lad unconscious. He lay limply on the flat rock, with the water breaking about his body, while Joe, his clothes drenched, clung to him.
“Get help! Get a rope!” Joe shouted, to his companions on the bank.
Frank and Chet lost no time.
They fled back toward the old mill.
The affair in the river had passed unnoticed by the millers, and when Chet and Frank rushed up to the front door they found no one in sight.
“I’m going inside,” declared Frank. “We’ll have to get a rope or they’ll be swept off that rock in no time.”
The door was closed, but he pushed it open and entered the dim interior of the mill. But hardly had he stepped inside, with Chet at his heels, than he ran into the arms of one of the men whom he had seen outside the doorway some time previously.
“Hi, what do you want?” demanded the man angrily. He seized Frank by the shoulders and tried to push him back, out of the building. At the same time the other man came running out of a nearby door.
“What’s going on here?” he shouted wrathfully. “What’s all this about? Get out of here, you boys!”
The sound of voices evidently attracted the attention of a third man, for he, too, came running out of the shadows, carrying a heavy club, which he brandished threateningly.
“What do you want here?” he shouted excitedly. He was short and broad-shouldered, with a dirty kerchief knotted about his neck.
“We want a rope,” Frank explained, taken aback by this hostile demonstration. “Your boy is drowning in the mill race!”
The three men became immediately concerned. They crowded about, asking questions.
“What boy?”
“Where is he?”
“What do you want a rope for?”
“He fell into the river a few minutes ago. If we don’t hurry he’ll be drowned. My brother rescued him and they’re both on a rock down near the rapids,” Frank said hurriedly. “Get a rope—quick!”
“Get a rope, Markel!” shouted the bespectacled old man to the fellow with the club. “Hurry up!”
Markel dropped the club and ran back into the room from which he had come. In a few moments he returned, dragging a length of stout rope.
“Where is he now?” asked the old man. “Lead the way.”
The men of the mill had forgotten their first animosity when told of the plight of the boy, and now they followed Chet and Frank as the two boys ran outside again and raced along the bank to the place where the other boys were standing in an excited group, shouting advice and encouragement to Joe, who was still clinging to the rock.
Markel stumbled along the bank with the rope, and when he reached the group of boys they moved back to give him space. He coiled the rope loosely in one hand, then whirled the free end of it about his head and flung it out into the stream.
But the rope fell short. Joe made a frantic grab for it, but Markel had misjudged the distance.
“Here—let me try it,” demanded the oldest of the three men, pushing Markel impatiently to one side. He seized the loose end of the rope, drew the remainder of it from the rushing water, then cast it out to Joe.
The rope whirled through the air, missed Joe’s outstretched fingers by inches, then splashed into the water.
Again the old man drew the rope back, again he swung it about his head and again it arched out above the river.
This time it fell against Joe’s shoulders. The youth, still clinging to the unconscious form on the rock, hastily grabbed at it, seized it, and began hastily tying it about his shoulders, underneath his arms.
He was handicapped by the fact that he had but one arm free, but at last he had the rope securely knotted.
The old man was greatly excited. He had noticed that the boy had not moved and that Joe had to cling to him to keep him from being swept off the rock.
“Lester!” he shouted. “Lester! Are you all right?”
“He hit his head on a rock and it knocked him out,” explained Jerry. “I don’t think he’s badly hurt.”
At that moment Joe looked up and waved to them, as a signal that they could begin towing him ashore. He tightened his hold on the unconscious boy, then eased himself off the rock.
The old man, Frank and Markel seized the end of the rope, and as Joe released his hold of the rock they began to pull.
The rope was an old one and Frank noticed, with alarm, that it was
