Tough sprang to the railing and looked down.
“Gawd a’mighty, girl!” he panted.
“I seen—seen—Gawd, woman!” he moistened his dry lips. “Was it—say, it wasn’t the kid?”
Molly burst into a blood-curdling laugh.
“Sure it was,” she cried. “I doped it a-purpose. I been trying to get up the nerve to do it ever since this morning. Do you think I was going to let her grow up into a thing like her mother? Man, you’re crazy.”
Tough’s coat had been already flung off. “Don’t be a quitter, girl,” he gasped. “Run for the cop and tell him to put out a boat, and then you wait for me. We’ll save her and she’ll be an all-right one and like her mother, too.”
Just how near Tough came to seeing his finish there in the rays of the moon which he loved nobody but Tough ever knew. It was easy enough to swim with the current and overtake and seize the tiny bundle held up for the moment on the surface of the water by the expanding draperies. It was when he turned and tried to swim back to the bridge that the waves pushed and beat at him like cruel hands. He thought somebody was trying to strangle him. What were they hanging to his feet for? Why did they push him and strike him? He wouldn’t go that way. He had to go the other way. He must make them quit twisting him. And then through the awful pounding at his brain came a cheery voice: “Ketch a hold, bo. Ketch a hold.”
Sputtering, gasping, sick, exhausted, Tough hitched his elbows weakly over the side and let the unconscious thing he had so nearly lost his life for slip gently into the bottom of the boat.
“Why, it’s Tough Muggins,” said the officer, looking down into his face. “For the lova Mike, what was you doin’?”
Through the dank drip of his hair Tough winked.