I reached the brow of the hill just in time to see him throw a stick into the creek, lose his balance, and fall in.

With an exclamation of terror, his own cry forming a faint echo, I sprang forward frantically, but the swift current caught and bore him away.

CHAPTER XIX

JOHN JONES, JUN

My agonized shout as I saw Bobsey swept away by the swollen current of the Moodna Creek was no more prompt than his own shrill scream.  It so happened, or else a kind Providence so ordered it, that Junior was further down the stream, tapping a maple that had been overlooked the previous day.  He sprang to his feet, whirled around in the direction of the little boy’s cry, with the quickness of thought rushed to the bank and plunged in with a headlong leap like a Newfoundland dog.  I paused, spellbound, to watch him, knowing that I was much too far away to be of aid, and that all now depended on the hardy country lad.  He disappeared for a second beneath the tide, and then his swift strokes proved that he was a good swimmer.  In a moment or two he caught up with Bobsey, for the current was too swift to permit the child to sink.  Then, with a wisdom resulting from experience, he let the torrent carry him in a long slant toward the shore, for it would have been hopeless to try to stem the tide.  Running as I never ran before, I followed, reached the bank where there was an eddy in the stream, sprang in up to my waist, seized them both as they approached and dragged them to solid ground.  Merton and Winnie meanwhile stood near with white, scared faces.

Bobsey was conscious, although he had swallowed some water, and I was soon able to restore him, so that he could stand on his feet and cry:  “I—­I—­I w-won’t d-do so any—­any more.”

Instead of punishing him, which he evidently expected, I clasped him to my heart with a nervous force that almost made him cry out with pain.

Junior, meanwhile, had coolly seated himself on a rock, emptied the water out of his shoes, and was tying them on again, at the same time striving with all his might to maintain a stolid composure under Winnie’s grateful embraces and Merton’s interrupting hand-shakings.  But when, having become assured of Bobsey’s safety, I rushed forward and embraced Junior in a transport of gratitude, his lip began to quiver and two great tears mingled with the water that was dripping from his hair.  Suddenly he broke away, took to his heels, and ran toward his home, as if he had been caught in some mischief and the constable were after him.  I believe that he would rather have had at once all the strappings his father had ever given him than to have cried in our presence.

I carried Bobsey home, and his mother, with many questionings and exclamations of thanksgiving, undressed the little fellow, wrapped him in flannel, and put him to bed, where he was soon sleeping as quietly as if nothing had happened.