"Hurry up that rail!"
There were shouts enough, and there would have been a panic if it had not been for Jerry McDonald.
"Swim, Put," he shouted. "Catch the end of my tippet. It's the longest kind of a tippet. Catch."
Put himself was quite cool about the matter, now he had yelled. In fact, almost anybody can keep cool in such ice-water as that was. The distance was not great, but the tippet was thrown out three times before the swimmer caught the end of it.
"Now, Bill," said Jerry, "we've got him. Grab me round the waist, and look out you don't slip. He's a-coming!"
So he was, for all the world as if he was a big fish and they had hooked him; but just as he came near the solid ice, and Bill and Jerry began to strain harder than ever, the rescued "bear" suddenly arose in the water until he stood half out of it.
"Pull!" shouted Jerry, with his nose in the air, and an anxious look on his face. "We've 'most got him."
"They've got him, boys!" yelled a youngster who was hurrying up with a fence rail twice as long as himself, but Put Giddings was as cool as ever.
It was easy enough to get out and start for home; but it was very mean of Pat Farrel to remark, "Put, me b'y, ye'd betther dance all the way."