"Be good now, while we're gone!"
Again he struck out blindly, fiercely, madly into the darkness that was slowly swallowing him body and soul.
His hand touched something as he sank, he grasped it with instinctive terror and knew no more until he waked in the infernal regions with the Devil sitting on his stomach glaring into his eyes and holding him by the throat trying to choke him to death. His head was down a steep hill.
With a mighty effort he threw the Devil off, loosed his hold and sucked in a tiny breath of air, and then another and another, coughing and spluttering and wheezing foam and water from his mouth and ears and nose and eyes.
At last a voice gasped:
"Is—that—you—Austin?"
"You bet it's me! I got ye a breathin' all right now—who'd ye think it wuz?"
The Boy coughed again and squeezed his lungs clear of water.
"Why—I was afraid I was dead and you was the Old Scratch and had me."
"Well, I thought you was a goner shore nuff till yer hand grabbed the pole I stuck after ye. Man alive, but you did hold onto it! I lakened ter never got yer hand loose so's I could pull ye up on the bank and turn ye upside down and squeeze the water outen ye."