"Save me! save me!" cried Ben, in piteous accents, as the current bore him down the stream.
"Hold on to the boat," replied Harry, "and I will be there in a minute."
Seizing a long pole which had some time formed a part of a fence there, he hastened down the bank to the water's edge. The water was not very deep, but it ran so rapidly that Ben could neither swim nor stand upon the bottom; and but for his companion's promptness he would undoubtedly have been drowned. Grasping the long pole which Harry extended to him, he was drawn to the shore, having received no other injury than a terrible fright and a good ducking.
"Here we are," said Harry, when his companion was safely landed.
"Yes, here we are," growled Ben; "and it is all your fault that we are here."
"It is my fault that you are here; for if I had not pulled you out of the river, you would have been drowned," replied Harry, indignantly; and perhaps he felt a little sorry just then that he had rescued his ungrateful commander.
"Yes, and if you had only done as I told you, and pushed for the shore above the fall, all this would not have happened."
"And if you hadn't been a fool, we should not have tried to go through such a hole. There goes your old boat"; and Harry pointed to the wreck, filled with water, floating down the stream.
"Here they are!" shouted a voice, not far from them.
Harry started, and so did Ben.