He did not answer, but he had evidently heard my words, for he rose in the water, turned with a bit of a splash, and began to swim in the other direction; while I followed, keeping close in where there was hardly any current.
Then I stopped and uttered a hoarse cry, for I saw him suddenly shoot right out toward the centre of the stream, and begin going down at a rate that was terrible. For I could see that any attempt to fight against the stream would be folly; all he could do was to keep himself afloat, and trust to being swept into some other cross current which might take him shoreward.
I felt willing enough to go to his help, but I could do nothing, and the feeling of impotence began to rob me of such little power as I possessed.
And now I saw that he realised his peril, for he raised one arm above the water and waved it to me, lowering it again directly, and swimming with the side-stroke, so that it seemed to me that he was drowning, for his head was nearly hidden by the water.
“Now, my lads, breakfast,” came from the bank, and I saw Gunson appear from among the pines. “Out with you. Where is Dean?”
I rose in the water, and pointed to where the poor fellow was rapidly passing out of eye-shot, being now quite three hundred yards away, and rapidly increasing the distance.
“What madness! He’ll be—”
I didn’t hear him finish the sentence, but I know what he meant to say; and in despair I swam to the shallows, waded out, and stood shading my eyes and watching Esau, who was still afloat, but rapidly being carried away.
As I reached the bank, I just caught a glimpse of Gunson running along the clearing beyond the little settlement, and my feeling of despair increased, for I knew that at the end of the opening the forest went down to the water’s edge, and that any one would have to struggle through the tangle of branches and fallen trees.
“No,” I thought; “he will get a boat.”