When Teddy and Dan came to the surface after having been thrown from their seats, they were within a few feet of each other, and the latter asked:
"Can you swim?"
"Yes; don't pay any attention to me, but do what you can toward saving those women."
"Will you help me?"
"Of course; but I can't take care of more than one."
Both boats had disappeared, and nothing save a few fragments showed where they had gone down.
Teddy thought only of aiding the struggling women, for there was no question that the man with the oar could take care of himself, at least until those on the bank should be sufficiently composed to do something effective, and he swam to the nearest struggling being, clasping her firmly under one arm as he said:
"Don't make a row; but keep perfectly quiet, an' I'll take you ashore."
Half-unconscious as she was, the woman attempted to grasp him by the neck, and for several seconds he had all he could do to prevent her from choking him to death; but after two or three kicks judiciously administered, he succeeded in making her understand that her life as well as his own depended upon her remaining passive, and from that moment all went well.
The employees of the company which had the boats on exhibition flung into the water several life-saving arrangements of cork and canvas, and by dint of much persuading he induced her to trust to one of these while he went to the assistance of Dan, who had been carried beneath the surface more than once by the struggles of the woman whom he was trying to save.