Part 3 (1/2)

THE RESCUE, AND A MYSTERY

”Look there, Fred!” cried Bristles, ”over nearer the sh.o.r.e, to the left!”

”I see them!” replied the other, almost instantly.

”It's a girl, and she acts as if she might be trying to get at somebody in the water,” the skipper of the ice-boat shouted, as he headed the flying craft straight toward the spot.

”Be ready to bring up in the wind, so we can tumble off, Bristles!”

advised Fred, taking in the whole situation at a glance, in his comprehensive way.

Bristles was already so excited that he came near upsetting the ice-boat by being too speedy about making the turn. Both boys scrambled to their feet as soon as they possibly could, and hurried toward the place where a girl of about ten years of age was wringing her poor little hands, and trying to reach a boy who was clinging to the crumbling edge of the ice.

He was up to his neck in the cold water of the river.

”Hold fast, and we'll get you out of that!” cried Fred, as they drew near. His quick eye had already taken note of the fact that a rail fence came down close to the water's edge just beyond, and it was straight toward this that he was now hurrying. Bristles knew what he was going for, and he kept near the heels of his chum.

The frightened girl thought they were deserting her, and redoubled her cries.

”Help! Oh! help us! Please don't go away! My poor brother will be drowned! He can't hold on much longer! Oh! come back and help get him out!”

By that time Fred had reached the end of the fence, which ran into the water so as to keep the cows from straying out of their pasture. He struggled with one of the rails, and managed to break it loose.

”Get another, and chase after me, Bristles!” he shouted, as he once more turned and hastened toward the hole in the rotten ice, where the boy, who could not be more than twelve years of age, was trying as best he could to keep from being drawn under by the sucking force of the strong current.

Once close up, Fred dropped on his knees, shoving the rail ahead of him.

In this fas.h.i.+on he was able to push it directly to the imperiled boy.

Bristles had been so rapid in his actions that he was hardly ten seconds behind the leader. He immediately copied Fred's example, so that there were now two rails reaching out in the direction of the hole, their further ends actually overtopping the gap in the ice.

”Stay here, Bristles, and do whatever I tell you!” Fred told his chum, when, having arranged the rails as he wished, he started out along them.

His weight being now distributed over a wide surface there was no danger of the rotten ice giving way under him. That is the essential point about nearly all rescues on the ice, and what every boy should bear in mind the moment his services are needed in order to save an imperiled companion.

Fred was now enabled to approach the very edge of the hole, so that he could hold out his hand to the boy in the water, who had been constantly telling the girl to keep back lest she too fall in. Between them it was possible to accomplish the rescue, for while Fred pulled, the boy also exerted himself to the utmost, and presently crawled over the edge.

”Keep your weight as much as you can on the rails, because with your clothes soaked, you weigh twice as much as I do,” Fred kept telling him; and yard by yard he drew the other along until finally they could get to their feet, and make for the sh.o.r.e.

The girl was crying hysterically now, although she had shown considerable bravery before.

”Oh! Brother Sammy, what if you had let go, and the current had drawn you under the ice! I think I'd have wanted to jump in, too, because I'd have nothing left to live for then!” she kept repeating, as she patted his cold hand tenderly, and tried to warm it.

Fred knew that unless something was done immediately, the boy would be very apt to be taken down sick, after all that nervous exhaustion, and the cold bath he had suffered. The air was chilly, and must strike him keenly.

”Here, you can't go home in that way, no matter how near by you live,” he went on to say, in his cheery way.

”Home!” repeated the girl, and her eyes exchanged a strange look with her brother. ”But what can we do, for there isn't any farmhouse around here?

We were coming across the river, and Sammy went too near a hole. Then the ice broke, and all I could do was to scream. He wouldn't let me come near him, but kept trying to climb out himself. Every time he got up on the ice it broke again, and he went in. Oh! it was just terrible, terrible! But he'll freeze now, mister, if we don't find a house soon.”

”No he won't, not if we know it,” said Fred. ”Here, slap your arms about you this way as hard as you can, and jump up and down as if you were crazy. Never mind how it looks, if only you get the blood to circulating good. Bristles, it's up to you and me to start a fire booming in a hurry.”

”Here's as good a place as any, Fred, for there's plenty of loose wood around.”