To his surprise and terror, he could move only a few inches. One of his feet had caught in a corner of one of the buckets, and he was held fast there.
“I’m caught! caught!” gasped Tommy.
Vainly he struggled to free himself. Then, from somewhere in another part of the mill, he heard the splashing of water, and it seemed to him that the wheel on which he was held fast was slowly moving.
“Oh, what shall I do?” gasped poor Tommy. “How can I get out of this?”
Louder splashed the water, and the big wheel moved more quickly now, while Tommy could hear the laughter of the two boys, as they opened the water gate wider and wider.
CHAPTER XII
TOMMY SAVES HIS ENEMY
Tommy Tiptop was thinking quickly. He was a plucky lad, and he did not give up hope in the face of danger. But he could not seem to help himself.
Again and again he tried to loosen his foot from where it was caught in a crack in the wheel, but he could not get free. He knew what would happen soon. The water, which came into a sort of long, wooden box, from the mill pond, ran underneath the big wheel, and, by striking on the wooden buckets or pockets, turned the wheel over, and had thus, in the times when the mill was running, moved the grindstones.
“I’ll be carried over until I get on the bottom,” thought Tommy, “and then I’ll be drowned, or crushed.”
He was not mistaken. The wheel was moving slowly, and he realized that only a part of the force of water was, as yet, striking the buckets. As the boys opened the gate wider, more water would come in the long, narrow box, and the wheel would turn over faster.