"Well, you can't blame him—Ella is all he has, you know," another voice chimed in.
Then the crowd moved closer to the mark where the swimmers were to come in and Polly heard no more.
"Goodness, I hope nothing has happened to Ella Mooney," she thought nervously. "Is that Artie? Why, he is leading—I do believe he is ahead!"
Artie might have retorted "Certainly I'm ahead!" He was not at all surprised to find himself in the lead. He had meant to be there.
But his plans were upset by the frantic appeal of Albert Holmes. He had not distinguished himself in the floaters' class—in fact he had doubled up like a jackknife and dropped out early in the contest, but nothing daunted, he had entered the race for beginners.
"I'm drowning!" gurgled Albert. "I'm drowning—Artie, what'll I do?"
Here he swallowed a generous mouthful of water and began to cry, half from fright and half from the unpleasant taste of the salty water.
Artie was exasperated. It was bad enough to have to swim his head off, so he thought irritably, without being called upon to stage a rescue. Still, he could not very well let Albert drown. He wished some one else would look after him, but the other children were intent on winning the race and they paid no attention to Albert's moanings. They had troubles of their own.
"I suppose I'll have to help him," groaned Artie. "I never can do anything I want to do. Hush up!" he added rudely to Albert, who was beginning to thrash around wildly. "If you don't keep still, I'll leave you where you are."
Artie would rescue Albert, if no one else would, but he was not the boy to let a little thing like that interfere with his first and foremost intention. He still planned to win the race.