The girls obeyed quickly and he crawled along until he could touch Betty. Very skillfully he took hold of her under her arms.
“Don’t struggle,” he warned her. “You’re all right.” And mustering every bit of his strength, he pulled her gently on to the ice beside him. “Now pull me back,” he ordered.
When his friends returned with the rope, she was safe on shore rolled up in the steamer rug, and Mrs. Baird was beside her. He was the center of an admiring and relieved crowd of girls, who were all talking at once.
Still master of the occasion he dispatched one of his friends for a carriage, and another for a warm drink. “And,” he added severely, after he had given them their directions, “don’t be so blame long about it this time.”
The warm drink arrived first—it was in a flask—and Mrs. Baird administered it sparingly.
Then the carriage arrived and she left Betty and came over to the others.
“You have been splendid,” she said to the red-headed boy. “I have no words in which to thank you. I shudder to think what we would have done without you.” She pressed his hand gratefully. “Thank you,” she repeated, with a hint of tears in her voice.
The red-headed boy, though a hero, was easily embarrassed.
“Oh, please,” he stammered, “it was all right. Nothing at all. Here, let me help you get her in the carriage,” he added hastily, glad of anything that would put a stop to these embarrassing thanks, and because he wanted one more look at Betty.
This wish was of course mere curiosity. If a chap saves a girl’s life, surely he had the right to know what she looked like, or so he argued with himself.