However that may be, Rawley used his last ounce of energy to reach the bank. A gloved hand reached down and caught him. Its mate seized the other wrist. He gave a final dig with his toes and a scrambling wriggle, and crawled up as some one pulled Peter off his back and the small torrent swept past.
On a shelf of rock above the watermark he lay back for a minute to breathe before he essayed to climb the high bank. He looked down at the rush of water, his eyes wide.
“Lord, I thought it was the whole river coming at me!” he panted disgustedly, looking up into the face of the Governor, whose hand had reached down to him. “Why, I could jump that,—almost.”
“Hardly, with a load,” the Governor retorted. “And then, the whole dam may give way at any moment, now it has started.”
Peter stirred and struggled to sit up. His dazed eyes went down to the new torrent. The sight stung him to full consciousness. He came up like a lion wounded but full of fight.
“Come on! We’ve got to shoot in that auxiliary dam,” he shouted thickly. “I—was going to—anyway. And let this flood down—easy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ANOTHER RESCUE
“Going to try for a rescue of the—body?” Jerry Newton looked up from fussing with one of the best small cameras on the market to-day. He had “got” that dramatic race with the flood, and he made no apologies for his enterprise. It was his business to get such scenes.
The Governor pressed his lips together and pointed downward.
“We’re going to save the living,” he said. “Where’s that doctor?”