"Thank God!" he murmured, as he raised the girl's head, with its mass of tangled hair, above the water. "Oh, thank God!"
As he turned and started to swim slowly back to shore with his burden, he almost ran into the other three boys who had followed close upon his heels.
"Oh, you've got her, have you?" said Frank, unutterable gladness in his voice. "I was sure you would be too late."
"It may be yet," said Roy, "if we don't get her to shore pretty quick. Here, let me take her, old man—you're all tuckered out."
Allen willingly released his burden, and they swam as quickly as they could to the shore.
They found the girls waiting for them, with white, strained faces.
"Oh, oh!" cried Grace, as they lifted the poor little inert body on to the bank. "Oh, do you suppose she is dead?"
"Well, she will be if we don't hurry pretty fast," said Betty, her voice trembling but determined. "Boys, look about and see if you can find anything round and hard that we can use in place of a barrel. Oh, do hurry! Mollie, you take her other arm and move it up and down—that's the way—hard—hard."
Mollie did as she was told and in less time than seemed possible the boys returned bringing with them part of a fallen log. This Betty declared was the very thing.
For half an hour they worked over the unconscious form and more than once during that time, they had almost given up hope of bringing back the spark of life. Then, all at once, a change took place—the ashy look of her face gave way to a faint tinge of color—the blue lips parted in something very like a sigh, and her hands, which had been lying inert and lifeless at her side, twitched almost imperceptibly.