"Come, Bill, just you let him alone," said Tim's companion; "he's worked up and mad, 'cause his mother told him not to go to the river, and that's where we're going this minute."
"Well, then, George, if he gits drowned, I guess he'll go where he said he was a-goin'," remarked Bill, passing on.
The little girls stood still, watching the other two as they hurried on down the bank, entered a canoe that lay on the water, made fast by a rope to a tree, loosed it, and pushed out into the stream.
They were not careful as Cyril had been to keep near the shore, and presently the current was carrying them down stream very rapidly.
A few hundred yards below the spot where they had embarked, a wooden bridge had formerly spanned the river; it had been torn down shortly before this, but the posts were left standing in the water. Against one of these the canoe struck and instantly overset, throwing the boys into the water where it was deepest and most dangerous.
The little girls and their attendant saw the mishap, and ran screaming toward some men who were at work at no great distance. The instant the men comprehended what had occurred, they made all haste to the scene of the disaster, and used every effort to rescue the lads.
They succeeded in bringing George out alive, but Tim had sunk to rise no more. They could not even find the body.
When this announcement was made, the two little girls, who had stood looking on in intense excitement and full of distress for the imperilled boys, burst into bitter weeping.
They hurried home, crying as they went, to tell the sad story.