I was a powerful swimmer, and nerved by the peril of the stranger in the water, I felt able to do anything. I let myself down into the river, and struck out with all my strength towards the sufferer. The current of the Mississippi is swift and treacherous. It was the hardest swimming I had ever known; and, dragging the rope after me, I had a fierce struggle to make any progress. In going those fifty feet, it seemed to me that I worked hard enough to accomplish a mile.
I reached the sufferer, and grasped the stick to which she clung. I was nearly exhausted myself by the violence of my efforts. I waited a moment to regain my breath, before I attempted to deal with the difficulties of the situation. I glanced at the person for whom I was to struggle. She was not a woman, but a girl of fourteen. She was in a sinking condition, apparently more from the effects of fear than actual suffering, for the stick to which she clung afforded her ample support.
Afraid that the act of hauling us in would detach her from the stick, I grasped it firmly with one hand, and clasped her around the waist with the other. Her frame quivered with the cold and the terror of her situation. As all persons in peril of drowning are apt to do, she was disposed to cling to me.
"Don't be afraid," said I to her. "You are safe now."
"Save me!" gasped she, hardly loud enough to be heard.
"Haul in!" I shouted to Sim.
I felt the rope cutting my waist as Sim jerked and tugged at it with all his strength. There was no lack of zeal on his part, but if anything had depended upon coolness and skill, we might both have been drowned. I kept a firm hold upon my helpless charge, and managed to keep her head above the water, though my own was dragged under several times by the clumsiness of my willing friend.
Sim pulled and hauled with energy, if not with skill. When he abandoned the steering oar, the raft began to whirl, and thus to complicate his labor. I caught a glance of the simple-minded fellow, as the craft turned, and I heard him yell, "Hookie!" He was nonplussed by the change of the raft; but he did not know enough to follow it round upon the outside. I am not sure this freak of the current did not save us from a calamity, for as it revolved, and the rope became tangled in the platform, we were thrown against the raft, thus saving my helpmate half his toil. Fortunately the end of the stick on which I floated struck the logs first, and broke the force of what might otherwise have been a stunning blow.
"Tie the rope, Sim!" I called to my assistant, who was now on the other side of the raft.
"O, Buckland!" cried Flora, as she came out of the house and gazed at me with an expression of intense pain.