A little later Dave rose with a whoop the instant that his head showed above the water.

“I’ve got her,” Dave announced, though his voice was hoarse and panting.

“Hurrah!” came from Dan, as he saw the girl’s head show above the surface.  Dalzell, hauling on the sheet, ran the boat in close.  Dave grasped at the rail on the weather quarter, while Dan bent over him, hauling hard.  And so Ella Wright was dragged unconscious into the boat.

“I’d stay here in the water with you, Tom,” explained Dave, “but I’ve got to be in the boat to do my share of handling her.”

“Th-th-that’s all r-r-r-r-right,” chattered poor Foss, “I’m d-d-d-doing f-f-f-fine here—­c-c-c-couldn’t h-help in the b-b-b-boat”

While lying to, it had taken some fine management on the part of the midshipmen to keep the sailboat from capsizing.  And now, on this rough, wave-strewn river, they had to tack back against a nearly head wind.

“Look at the crowd on the clubhouse float,” gasped Dan as soon as the Naval chums had gotten their craft under way.

“Good thing,” muttered Darrin.  “We’ll need plenty of help.”

“I wonder how the crowd got wind of the thing in such short time?”

“You forget,” nudged Darrin, “that there’s a telephone in the clubhouse.  Laura and Belle are not given to losing their heads.  Undoubtedly they’ve been ’phoning to Gridley.”

“Then they can’t have overlooked the need of physicians,” ventured Dan, “especially as Laura is the daughter of one.”

As the boat drew nearer to the float the noise of cheers was borne to the ears of the midshipmen.

“More of the hero racket,” uttered Dan disgustedly.

“I hope this won’t get into the newspapers,” grunted Darrin in a tone of something like real alarm.  “Say, the fellows of the brigade wouldn’t do a thing but make us mount chairs and read all the fulsome gush about this rescue.”

“And then, after we’d finished a straight reading,” groaned Dan, “we’d have to sing it next, to the tune of ‘Columbia, the Pride of the Ocean.’”

“‘Gem of the Ocean,’ Dan,” Darrin corrected.

Though in the middle of the river the sailboat had many a close shave from capsizing in the strong puffs of wind, especially with the load that the little craft carried, yet Dan Dalzell, at the tiller, brought the boat at last in under the lee side of the float, and there a score of pairs of willing hands reached out with offers of help.

Dr. Bentley was in the crowd, as were two other Gridley physicians.  There were also two trained nurses, and one of the druggists had brought along a big emergency box of drugs and supplies.  Between them the telephone and the automobile can accomplish a lot in these modern times.

Laura and Belle, though they had summoned the aid, now kept tactfully in the background.

The two apparently drowned girls were lifted from the boat in haste and borne to a room that had been made ready on the second floor of the clubhouse.  Ab Canty was carried to another room, and Tom Foss, who nearly shook to pieces when lifted from the water, was helped after his friend.