"You're doing fine, Billy!"
In the bawling rush of the stream it was hard to hear Archie. Still, Billy heard. And he nodded—but did not dare to turn.
"Go slow," Archie called, "and you'll make it!"
Billy thought so too. He was doing well—it seemed a reasonable expectation. And he ventured his right foot forward and established it. It was slow, cautious work, thrusting through that advance, feeling over the bottom and finding a fixed foundation; and dragging the left foot forward, in resistance to the current, was as slow and as difficult. A second step, accomplished with effort; a third, achieved at greater risk; a fourth, with the hazard still more delicate—and Billy Topsail paused again.
It was deeper. The broken waves washed his thighs; the heavy body of the water was above his knees; he was wet to the waist with spray; and in the deeper water, by the law of displacement, he had lost weight. The water tended to lift him: the impulse was up to the surface—the pressure down-stream. In this respect the current was like a wrestler who lifts his opponent off his feet before he flings him down.
And in the meantime the current tightened its hold.
[CHAPTER XXXVI]
In Which Ha-Ha Shallow is Foiled, Archie Armstrong Displays Swift Cunning, of Which He is Well Aware, and Billy Topsail, Much to His Surprise, and not Greatly to His Distaste, is Kissed by a Lady of Poor Luck Barrens