He looked over his shoulder.
"No! He has come up again!" he exclaimed: it was noticeable that he called the dog "he," while she spoke of it as "it." "We shall get him in time. Keep the boat straight!"
The words were uttered in a tone of command, and they moved her as the touch of his hand had done; and she set her mind upon the task as she had never before set it upon anything.
Reaching well forward, pulling with the long, steady stroke of the practised oarsman, Stafford sent the boat along like an arrow, and presently he drove it up to the spot where the dog strove in its death straggle.
It was a tiny black-and-tan terrier, and Stafford, as he looked over his shoulder, saw the great eyes turned to him with a piteous entreaty that made his heart ache.
"Turn the boat—quick!" he cried; and as the skiff slid alongside the dog, he swooped it up.
The mite gave a little gasping cry like a child, and closing its eyes sank into Stafford's arms with a shudder.
"Is it dead?" asked Maude Falconer, looking not at the dog but at Stafford, for his face, which had been red with exertion a moment ago, had become suddenly pale.
"I don't know—no!" he said, absently, all his thoughts centered on the dog.
He wiped it as dry as he could with his blazer, then turning aside, he opened his shirt and put the cold morsel in his bosom.