o’ my coat pocket. I guess nothin’ ain’t goin’ to happen for a few minutes.”

[Pg 64]The surmise about the horses, unlike most of Old Kennebec’s, proved to be true. Benson’s pair had gone to Portland with a load of hay; accordingly the tackle was brought, the rope was adjusted to a log, and five of the drivers, standing on the river-bank, attempted to drag it from its intrenched position. It refused to yield the fraction of an inch. Rufus and Stephen joined the five men, and the augmented crew of seven were putting all their strength on the rope when a cry went up from the watchers on the bridge. The “dog” had loosened suddenly, and the men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they were stunned both by the surprise and by the shock of the blow, but in the same moment the cry of the crowd swelled louder. Alcestis Crambry had stolen, all unnoticed, to the rope and had attempted to use his feeble powers for the common good. When then blow came he fell backward, and, making no effort to control the situation, slid over the bank and into the water.

[Pg 64]

IN A TWINKLING HE WAS IN THE WATER

[Pg 65]The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly, but there was no jeering from the bridge.

[Pg 65]

Stephen had seen Alcestis slip, and in the fraction of a moment had taken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks behind him in a twinkling he was in the water, almost as soon as the boy himself.

“Doggoned idjut!” exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. “Wuth the hull fool family! If I hedn’t ’a’ be’n so old, I’d ’a’ jumped in myself, for you can’t drownd a Wiley, not without you tie nail-kegs to their head an’ feet an’ drop ’em in the falls.”

Alcestis, who had neither brains, courage, nor experience, had, better still, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried swiftly down the current; but, only fifty feet away, a long, slender, log, wedged between two low rocks on the shore, jutted out over the water, almost touching its surface. The boy’s clothes were admirably[Pg 66] adapted to the situation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the log caught in the rags of Alcestis’s coat and held him just seconds enough to enable Stephen to swim to him, to seize him by the nape of the neck, to lift him on the log, and thence to the shore. It was a particularly bad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do but to lower ropes and drag the 

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