Part 17 (1/2)

The falls fell full thirty feet, and at the foot of it the river was churned into swirling, liquid foam that whirled around and around again in a sort of mad race and then went rus.h.i.+ng off down the river in a shower of lacy spray.

It was wildly inspiring, exhilarating, and the girls thrilled with a strange new emotion as they watched. It was so free, so gloriously unchained!

”There is our swimming pool over there,” Mollie said, raising her voice to make it heard above the roar of the water. ”You see there is a sort of little back eddy below the falls and to one side of it, and right there we'll find the best swimming of our lives. But,” she added, and her voice was impressively solemn, ”heaven help any one of us who gets in the path of the falls.”

”Look!” cried Amy suddenly, her voice ringing out full and clear and startled above the uproar. ”That--thing--over there. It is going into the falls--no, under them!”

”Where?” cried Mollie eagerly, leaning far forward. ”Oh, yes, I see what you mean. Oh, girls, I'm slipping!” Her voice rose to a terrified wail.

”Betty! Catch me!”

But Betty was too late. She sprang forward just in time to see Mollie slide down the slippery bank and plunge into the maddened water of the river!

Chapter XVII

The ”Thing”

It took the girls a moment to realize the extent of the awful thing that had happened. Then Betty, obeying her first impulse, raised her hands above her head as though to dive, but Amy screamed to her to stop.

”You will only be lost too!” she cried frantically. ”Look--that flat stick--the long one--”

Instantly Betty saw what she meant and stooped to pick up a long broken branch that was lying at her feet. At the same instant Mollie came to the surface several feet away from the spot where she had fallen and threw her strength desperately against the rus.h.i.+ng might of the river.

Betty ran along the river bank, Amy and Grace at her heels, shouting encouragement to Mollie as she ran.

”Hold tight!” she cried, adding with fresh dismay as she saw that the girl was being swept further from the sh.o.r.e: ”Over this way, honey. Swim to your right--to your right--”

Blinded, chilled to the bone with the cold water, her hair in her eyes and her skirts clinging tight about her legs, Mollie struggled wildly, unable to hear the shouts of her chums above the ringing in her ears.

It was taking all her strength to hold her own against the rush of the river--and now she was not even doing that! Slowly, very slowly, she was being pushed backward; in a little while more she would be sucked downward, and then--

She closed her eyes, and then, as though the obliteration of one sense made more clear the other, she heard Betty calling to her above the roar of the falls.

”Mollie! Mollie!” it came, faint but distinct, ”take hold of the stick and we'll pull you in. Mollie, do you hear me?”

The girl in the water was still struggling hard against the current that was dragging at her cruelly, and at the sound of Betty's words she shook the water from her eyes and looked about her dazedly. She had forgotten the girls.

Then she saw something that sent a tingle of renewed hope through her tired body. What she saw was a long branch bobbing on the water not two feet from her outstretched hand, and at the other end of the stick was--Betty.

With a sigh that was half a sob she struck out for it, reached it, and clung to it as only the drowning know how to cling.

Then she felt herself being drawn through the water, and once more she closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was on a warm gra.s.sy bank with Amy chafing one hand, Grace the other, while Betty was busy unfastening the clothes about her waist.

As Mollie was never under any circ.u.mstances expected to act as people thought she should act, so this occasion was no exception to the rule. She pushed Amy and Grace aside, glared at Betty, and sat up with a little jerk.

”For goodness' sake, stop undressing me, Betty Nelson!” she said. ”I'm not dead yet.”

”So we see,” said Betty, while her eyes lost their anxious expression and began to twinkle instead. ”But you might have been, you know, if we had left you to yourself.”

Mollie looked down at her dripping clothes ruefully and then out at the rus.h.i.+ng water.