“Haul in!” Joe panted. “Haul fast!”
I hauled, and as I hauled he threw off his clothes, his heavy boots, and catching the loose end of the line, knotted it about his breast under the armpits.
“Ahoy, you!” he yelled. We were running now along the bank to keep abreast. “Swim for it. I’ll meet you with the line.”
It was a desperate chance for both of them. But the man leaning against the pilot house threw off shoes and cap, and, running aft, poised lightly on the stern. Then he waved a hand and plunged headfirst, rose, and faced cliff-ward, borne swiftly along on the eddy, but swimming with slow, vigorous strokes. Galloway—or Hall, as he wished to be known—sprinted along the cliff and gained some headway on the swimmer.
“Pay out!” he gritted. “And keep along with the current if you can.”
Then he plunged, thirty feet to the gray-green sweep of the eddy.
It was a great fight, with us two helpless watchers and every chance against that hardy soul from the Grosbeak. With a line on Joe, we could haul him in. The other had to reach him or drown. And it seemed to me and my bolt cutter that he lost ground, that the eddy carried him out for all the power of his stroke. But we told each other that if he could hold his own Joe would get him.
And he did. With a scant fathom of line left in my hands, and the Grosbeak man fast weakening, they met. I saw Joe grip him, and saw him relax in that grip. Then we hauled them in and lifted them out on a flat rock, both near gone—for the pull of the rope against the drag of the tide held them under half the time.
The man was conscious, but utterly exhausted, too spent to speak. He lay on his side, breast heaving, hair in clammy strands across his brow. A good-looking, clean-built chap of thirty, maybe. All he had on him was a thin undershirt and a pair of cotton overalls. Their damp cling threw into clean contours the depth of his chest and the ropy muscle of his arms. His face was almost boyish. He lay there panting, blinking up at me. Slowly a wry grin, an odd expression for one who had been near to death, stole across his face.
He sat up and looked at the Grosbeak, now on her second swing, drawing fatefully near to the vortex.