"That's right," agreed Steve, frowning; "everybody tried to grab my hand at the same time, and me a telling them all the while I didn't have a thing to do with saving the child, only hauling on the rope. Say, I know now why you wouldn't go ashore, Max; you didn't want to be mobbed, did you? It's just terrible I'm telling you all. If I ever save anybody's life I'm going to take to the woods right away, till everybody forgets it."
"I saw Mr. Harding talking to you; what did he say?" asked Max, smiling a little to find that Steve was so modest.
"Oh! like a good many more of 'em he thinks we're taking too big chances staying right along out here, and that we ought to come ashore," Steve replied.
"He means it for our good, all right," ventured Bandy-legs, "and you know, fellers, he had a boy drowned year before last, so I reckon he's worried about us more than a little. What did you tell him, Steve?"
"That I'd leave it to Max here," came the reply.
"Which is putting a lot of responsibility on my poor shoulders," remarked that worthy, with a shrug.
"Well, you're our leader, and as long as we believe you know best we expect to follow out your ideas," Steve went on to say.
"That sounds pretty fine, Steve," observed Max; "but right now if I told you I thought we'd better go ashore you'd kick like a steer."
"Oh! well, you see there doesn't seem to be any very great danger as long as a big tree ain't swooping down to strike the bridge a crack; and besides, what if another baby happened to come sailing along on a raft, what'd we think of ourselves if we'd gone up on the bank, and couldn't even make a break to save it?"
Steve argued fairly well, and Max did not attempt to press the matter. To tell the truth he was tempted to linger to the very last in the hope of being instrumental in doing more good. If one child had been sent adrift in the flood, perhaps there might be others also in need of succor. And so Max, usually so cautious, allowed himself to be tempted to linger even when his better judgment warned him of the terrible risks they ran.