Presently Joel heard his name cried in an
exhausted voice.
"I--can't make--it--Joel!" shouted West. "I'll--have to--turn--back."
"All right," Joel called. "Go up to the field and send some one for
help." Then he turned his attention again to his strokes, and raising
his head once, saw an open river before him with nothing in sight
between him and the opposite bank save, farther down stream, a floating
oar. He had made some allowance for the current, and when in another
moment he had reached what seemed to him to be near the scene of the
catastrophe, yet a little farther down stream, he trod water and looked
about. Under the bluff to the right Cloud was crawling from the river.
West was gone from sight. About him ran the stream, and save for its
noise no sound came to him, and nothing rewarded his eager, searching
gaze save a branch that floated slowly by. With despair at his heart, he
threw up his arms and sank with wide-open eyes, peering about him in the
hazy depths. Above him the surface water bubbled and eddied; below him
was darkness; around him was only green twilight. For a moment he
tarried there, and then arose to the surface and dashed the water from
his eyes and face. And suddenly, some thirty feet away, an arm clad in a
white sweater sleeve came slowly into sight.
With a frantic leap through the water Joel sped toward it. A bare head
followed the upstretched arm; two wild, terror-stricken eyes opened and
looked despairingly at the peaceful blue heavens; the white lips moved,
but no sound came from them.
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