All nodded assent.
“If we are capsized, my sons,” continued the big fellow drily, “one of you had better swim up to me and take me on his back. What do you say, little un?” he added to Abel. “It’ll be your turn to help me.”
“I’ll stand by you,” cried Abel; “never fear.”
“I know that, my lad. I say, the stream begins to show now as the place gets narrower. Looks as if it’ll be nearly closed in. Well, we must risk it. There’s no walking as I see on either side.”
“Ahoy!” came from the right bank, where the lake was fast becoming a river.
“Ahoy to you, and good morning, whoever you are,” cried the Cornishman.
Some unintelligible words followed, he who uttered them being plainly to be seen now
on a ledge some fifty feet above the surface of the water. But his signs were easy to be understood.
“Wants us to give him a lift,” said Dallas. “Can we stop?”