"Oh no, no!" implored Pat, clinging tighter.
"You've got to, Pat! It's our only chance!" Summoning all the strength he had in his fine young body he lifted her as he spoke! The effort made great veins swell on his forehead. With a gasp of terror she caught and clung with both arms to the branch.
"Get your legs around it, too," directed Garrett. "Now work yourself along! Hurry, Pat!"
Stung into effort Pat with feverish haste did as he told her. Securing her hold on the branch by locking her strong legs about it she gradually swung around until she was astride it. Then it was but a moment's work to edge along to the bank. Grasping the strong roots of the undergrowth she pulled herself to the top. She wanted dreadfully then to throw herself down upon the ground and cry, but a sharp noise below made her turn suddenly.
Garrett had attempted to lift himself upon the branch. Strained by Pat's weight, under his it snapped off, dropping him back into the water.
"Garrett!" screamed Pat. In agony she watched for his head to reappear at the surface of the water. As he came up he again caught the edge of the ice, but his face was gray and drawn as though by sharp pain and his breath came and went in short gasps. She called him vainly over and over but he could not seem to muster enough strength to answer! She fancied, in her terror, that his fingers were slipping in their hold of the ice.
It was her turn to direct!
"Garrett, move down! See, the tree's across the ice! Maybe it'll hold! Oh, Garrett, try!"
With a slow, cramped movement he worked along the edge of the rapidly enlarging hole until he could grasp the broken branch which stretched now across the dark water, one end firmly held in a crack of the ice where it had buckled near the bank. Strengthened by desperation, Garrett managed to crawl along it until he reached the bank. As, numbed by exposure, he struggled to lift himself up the steep side of the gorge, clinging for support, as Pat had done, to roots and branches, repeatedly slipping back, it seemed to Pat as though he could not make it! At last her own frantic hands dragged him over the top to safety, only to have him drop in an unconscious heap at her feet!
All Pat knew was that whatever she had to do she must do quickly! Loosening the straps of her skates she threw them from her! Then she attempted to lift him. He was too heavy--she could not stagger a step with his weight in her arms. So as gently as she could she dragged him over the soft snow to a higher point of open ground from which she could see the lake and the skaters and the farmhouse!