“What shall we do?” cried West.  “He’s drowning!  Can you swim?” For Joel had already divested himself of his coat and vest, and was cutting the lacings of his shoes.  West hesitated an instant only, then followed suit.

“Yes.”  Off went the last shoe, and Joel ran into the water.  West, pale of face, but with a determined look in his blue eyes, followed a moment later, a yard or two behind, and the two set out with desperate strokes to reach the scene of the disaster.  As he had taken the water Joel had cast a hurried glance toward the spot where Clausen had sunk, and had seen nothing of that youth; only Cloud was in sight, and he seemed to be swimming hurriedly toward shore.

Joel went at the task hand over hand and heard behind him West, laboring greatly at his swimming.  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.  And then, just as the eyes closed and just as the body began to sink, as slowly as it had arisen, and for the last time, Joel reached it.

There was no time left in which to pause and select a hold of the drowning boy, and Joel caught savagely at his arm and struck toward the bank, and the inert body came to the surface like a water-logged plank.

“Clausen!” shouted Joel.  “Clausen!  Can you hear?  Brace up!  Strike out with your right hand, and don’t grab me!  Do you hear?”

But there was no answer.  Clausen was like stone in the water.  Joel cast a despairing glance toward the bluff.  Then his eyes brightened, for there sliding down the bank he saw a crowd of boys, and as he looked another on the bluff threw down a coil of new rope that shone in the afternoon sunlight as it fell and was seized by some one in the throng below.