He could not realize Binney's dread of the water, nor what a struggle against his natural timidity took place in the boy's mind before he answered, "Very well, if you say so, Glen, I'll trust you."
While he was laying aside his water-soaked clothing and preparing for the dreaded undertaking, Glen suddenly uttered an exclamation of dismay. He had spied several horsemen riding along the river-bank towards them. Were they white men or Indians? Did their coming mean life or death?
"I'm afraid they are Indians," said Glen; "for our camp must be ten miles off."
Binney agreed with him that they must have come at least that distance during the night, and the boys watched the oncoming horsemen with heavy hearts.
"I'd rather drown than let them get me again," said Glen.
But Binney had not had the other's experience with Indians, and to him nothing could be more terrible than water.
Long and earnestly they watched, filled with alternate hopes and fears. The riders seemed to move very slowly. All at once, Glen uttered a shout of joy. "They are white men!" he cried. "I can see their hats;" and, seizing his wet shirt, he began to wave it frantically above his head.
That his signal was seen was announced by a distant cheer, and several shots fired in quick succession. A few minutes later, six white men reined in their horses on the bank, just abreast the wagon. They were hardly able to credit their eyes as they recognized, in the two naked figures clinging to it, those whom they had been so certain were long ago drowned, and for whose bodies they were searching. As they hurriedly consulted concerning how best to effect a rescue, they were amazed to see both boys clamber down from their perch, and drop into the turbid waters, one after the other. When they realized that Glen and Binney were swimming, and trying in this way to reach the shore, they forced their horses down the steep bank and dashed into the shallow overflow of the bottom-land to meet them.
At that moment Binney Gibbs, by trusting himself so implicitly to Glen's strength and skill, in an element where he was so utterly helpless, was displaying a greater courage than where, acting under impulse, he sprang from his mule the day before, and ran back to fight Indians. The bravest deeds are always those that are performed deliberately and after a careful consideration of their possible consequences.
As "Billy" Brackett, who was the first to reach the boys, relieved Glen of his burden, he exclaimed,