“Catch hold here!” he ordered.  “Make a loop as I have, and don’t let it slip through your hands.”

“Oh, Tom! you’re never going into that cold water?” Ruth gasped, suddenly stricken with fear for her friend’s safety.

But that was exactly what Tom intended to do.  There was no other way.  He had seen, too, the exhaustion of the girl in the water and knew that if her hands slipped from the tree branch, she could never get a grip on the wire.

Without removing an article of clothing the boy leaped into the stream.  It was over his head right here below the bank, and the chill of the water was tremendous.  As Tom said afterward, he felt it “clear to the marrow of his bones!”

But he came up and struck out strongly for the face of the girl, which was all that could be seen above the surface.

Hazel Gray’s hold was slipping from the branch.  She was blue about the lips and her eyes were almost closed.  The current was tugging at her strongly; she was losing consciousness.  If she was carried away by the suction of the stream, now dragging so strongly at her limbs, Tom Cameron would be obliged to loose his own hold upon the wire and swim after her.  And the young fellow was not at all sure that he could save either her or himself if this occurred.

Yet, perilous as his own situation was, Tom thought only of that of the actress.

CHAPTER III

AT THE RED MILL

Helen, greatly excited, stood on the seat of the tonneau and cheered her brother on at the top of her voice.  That, in her excitement, she thought she was “rooting” at a basket-ball game at Briarwood, was not to be wondered at.  Ruth heard her chum screaming: 

“S.B.—­Ah-h-h!  S.B.—­Ah-h-h Sound our battle-cry Near and far!  S.B.—­All!  Briarwood Hall!  Sweetbriars, do or die——­ This be our battle-cry——­ Briarwood Hall! That’s All!”

At the very moment the excited Helen brought out the “snapper” of the rallying cry of their own particular Briarwood sorority, Ruth let the limb go, for Tom had seized the sinking actress by the shoulder.

“He’s got her!” the men shouted in chorus.

“And that’s all those fellows were,” Ruth said afterwards, in some contempt.  “Just a chorus!  They were a lot of tabby-cats—­afraid to wet their precious feet.  If it hadn’t been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation men.  Ugh!  I de-test a coward!”

This was said later, however.  Until they drew Tom and his fainting burden ashore, neither Ruth nor Helen had time for criticism.  Then they bundled Hazel Gray in the automobile rugs, while Tom struggled into an overcoat and cranked up the machine.  The director came to inquire: 

“What are you going to do with that girl?”

“Take her to the Red Mill,” snapped Ruth.  “That’s down the river, opposite the road to Cheslow.  And don’t try to see her before to-morrow.  No thanks to you that she isn’t drowned.”