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She met his look courageously, his lantern showing her wet, brave young face, crossed by dripping strands of hair.

“Sure!” she said.

“Well, God bless you!” he said; “God–bless–you! You take this fence, I’ll go over to that ‘n.”

The rushing, noisy darkness again. The horrible wind, the slipping, the plunging again. Again the slow, slow progress; driven and whipped now by the thought that at this very instant–or this one–the boys might be giving out, relaxing hold, abandoning hope, and slipping numb and unconscious into the rising, chuckling water.

Mary Bell did not think of the dance now. But she thought of rest; of rest in the warm safety of her own home. She thought of the sunny dooryard, the delicious security of the big kitchen; of her mother, so placid and so infinitely dear, on her couch; of the serene comings and goings of neighbors and friends. How wonderful it all seemed! Lights, laughter, peace,–just to be back among them again, and to rest!

And she was going away from it all, into the blackness. Her lantern glimmered,–went out. Mary Bell’s cramped fingers let it fall. Her heart pounded with fear of the inky dark.

She clung to the fence with both arms, panting, resting. And while she hung there, through rain and wind, across darkness and space, she heard a voice, a gallant, sturdy little voice, desperately calling,–

“Jim! Ji-i-m!”

Like an electric current, strength surged through Mary Bell.

“O God! You’ve saved ’em, you’ve got ’em safe!” she sobbed, plunging frantically forward. And she shouted, “All right–all right, darling! Hang on, boys! Just HANG ON! Hal-lo, there! Billy! Davy! Here I am!”

Down in pools, up again, laughing, crying, shouting, Mary Bell reached them at last, felt the heavenly grasp of hard little hands reaching for hers in the dark, brushed her face against Billy Carr’s wet little cheek, and flung her arm about Davy Henderson’s square shoulders. They had been shouting and calling for two long hours, not ten feet from the fence.

Incoherent, laughing and crying, they clung together. Davy was alert and brave, but the smaller boy was heavy with sleep.

“Gee, it’s good you came!” said Davy, simply, over and over.

“You’ve got your boots on!” she shouted, close to his ear; “they’re too heavy! We’ve got a long pull back, Davy,–I think we ought to go stocking feet!”

“Shall we take off our coats, too?” he said sensibly.

They did so, little Billy stumbling as Mary Bell loosened his hands from the fence. They braced the little fellow as well as they could, and by shouted encouragement roused him to something like wakefulness.

“Is Jim coming?” he shouted.

Mary Bell assented wildly. “Start, Davy!” she urged. “We’ll keep him between us. Right along the fence! What is it?” For he had stopped.

“The other fellers?” he said pitifully.

She told him that they were safe, safe at the fire, and she could hear him break down and begin to cry with the first real hope that the worst was over.

“We’re going to get out of this, ain’t we?” he said over and over. And over and over Mary Bell encouraged him.

“Just one more good spurt, Davy! We’ll see the fire any minute now!”

In wind and darkness and roaring water, they struggled along. The tide was coming in fast. It was up to Mary Bell’s knees; she was almost carrying Billy.

“What is it, Davy?” she shouted, as he stopped again.

“Miss Mary Bell, aren’t we going toward the river!” he shouted back.

The sickness of utter despair weakened the girl’s knees. But for a moment only. Then she drew the elder boy back, and made him pass her. Neither one spoke.

“Remember, they may come to meet us!” she would say, when Davy rested spent and breathless on the rail. The water was pushing about her waist, and was about his armpits now; to step carelessly into a pool would be fatal. Billy she was managing to keep above water by letting him step along the middle rail, when there was a middle rail. They made long rests, clinging close together.