“He must be badly hurt, Will. But all right; I’ve got him safe, and I’ll soon take him to the shore.”
“Here, let me take one side,” cried Will.
“Nonsense, dear lad! Stay as you are.”
“I can’t,” cried Will; “I must help. He is my father, and I must and will!”
“That’s right, my boy, but on my word you can’t. I am a strong man, I believe, but it is all I can do to hold my own. If you leave go you’ll be swept away, and your father will be drowned; for I tell you now, I couldn’t stop by him and see you go.”
Will gazed at him blankly, and for a few moments that group in the midst of the tangle of broken timber and jagged root hung together, boy and man staring into each other’s eyes.
“Will, dear lad,” said the artist, at last, “we are good old friends. Trust and believe in me. I’ll save your father if I can. If I don’t, it is because I can’t, and I’ve gone too. Promise me you’ll hold on there till I come back, or some of your friends come down. They must know how we are fixed. Will you do what I say? I am speaking as your father would. Hold on where you are.”
“Would he say that?” gasped Will, faintly.
“He would, I vow.”
Will bowed his head, and the next moment he was clinging there, to the clean-washed roots of the uptorn tree, watching the heads of father and friend being rapidly swept-down the stream, while the waters were surging higher and higher about his breast, for the depression was being filled rapidly by the undammed stream.