Dan shook his head, once more plunging under, swimming for the bottom with long, powerful strokes.
He had great difficulty this time in finding the spot he was in search of, for in his rise to the surface he had been carried some twenty feet from the place where Kester lay.
He reached it at last. Sam had gotten the rope about the neck of the diver but was too much exhausted to make a hitch.
Dan pushed him toward the surface. Working desperately Davis at last succeeded in completing the work that Sam had well-nigh finished.
The boy’s mind was working with lightning-like rapidity. He knew that he could not hope to get the drowning man to the surface by his own efforts. There was only one way that this could possibly be accomplished. That was to get to the surface himself and try to draw Kester up. Dan did not know whether the rope would reach that distance or not.
“I must do it!” he thought.
Grasping the end of the rope he dashed upward for the surface. On the way he met a figure coming down. It was Sam. Dan grabbed him and by a series of quick pinches managed to convey the word that the red-headed boy was to return to the surface.
Sam wriggled about and struck out for the upper air.
Hickey’s red head appeared in a swirl of water and spray. He shook his head, gasping for breath, nearly drowning himself in the effort to get even a little fresh air into his lungs.
An instant later Dan leaped to the surface.