"Say, they are fighting hard," said Fielding. "That bloody little fool is choking the life out of Dunbar. My God! they are out of sight!"

"Go on," roared Knight. "Keep your eyes on the spot, and for Heaven's sake, paddle!"

"They are up again! One of them is. It's Barry. The other is gone. No, by Jove! he's got him! Hold on, Barry, we're coming," yelled Tom. "Stick to it, old boy!"

Swiftly the canoe sped toward the drowning men.

"They are gone this time for sure," cried Tom, as the canoe shot over the spot where the men had last been seen.

"Not much!" said Knight, as reaching out of the stern he gripped Barry by the hair. "Hold hard, Barry," he said quietly. "No monkey work now or you'll drown us all." Immediately Barry ceased struggling.

"Don't try to get in, Barry. We'll have to tow you ashore."

"All right, Jim," he said between his sobbing breaths. "Only--hurry up--I've got him--here."

Knight reached down carefully, lifted Barry till his hand touched the gunwale of the canoe.

"Not too hard, Barry," he said. "I'll ease you round to the stern.

Steady, boy, steady. Don't dump us."

"All right--Jim--but--he's under the water--here."

"Oh, never mind him. We'll get him all right. Can you hold on now?" said Knight.

"Yes--I think so."

"Now, for God's sake, Tom, edge her into the shore. See that little eddy there? Swing into that! You'll do it all right. Good man!"

By this time Knight was able to get Harry's head above water.

In a few minutes they had reached the shore, and were working hard over Harry's unconscious body, leaving Barry lying on the sand to recover his strength. A long fight was necessary to bring the life back into Harry, by which time Barry was sufficiently recovered to sit up.

"Stay where you are, Barry, until we get this man back to camp," ordered Knight. "We'll light a bit of a fire for you."

"I'm warm enough," said Barry.

"Warm enough? You may be, but you will be better with a fire, and you lie beside it till we get you. Don't move now."

"There's the other canoes coming," said Fielding. "They'll make shore a little lower down. They're all right. Say, she's handling that canoe like a man!"

"Who?" said Barry.

"Why, Miss Howland," said Fielding. "She was out after you like a shot.

She's a plucky one!"

Barry was on his feet in an instant, watching anxiously the progress of the canoes, which were being slowly edged across the river in a long incline toward the shore.

"They'll make it, all right," said Knight, after observing them for a time. "Don't you worry. Just lie down by the fire. We'll be back in a jiffy."

In an hour they were all safely back in camp, and sufficiently recovered to discover the humorous points in the episode. But they were all familiar enough with the treacherous possibilities of rough and rapid water to know that for Hobbs and his deliverer at least, there had been some serious moments during their fierce struggle in the river.

"Another minute would have done," said Fielding to his friend, as they sat over the fire after supper.

"A half a minute would have been just as good," said Knight. "I got Barry by the hair under water. He was at his last kick, you bet! And that rat," he added, smiling good naturedly at Harry, "was dragging him down for the last time."

"I didn't know nothin' about it," said poor Harry, who was lying stretched out by the fire, still very weak and miserable. "I didn't know nothin' about it, or you bet I woudn't ha' done it. I didn't know nothin' after he got me."

"After you got him, you mean," said Fielding.

"I guess that's right," said Harry, "but I wouldn't ha' got him if he hadn't ha' got me first."

They all joined in the discussion of the event except Paula, who sat distrait and silent, gazing into the fire, and Barry, who lay, drowsy and relaxed, on a blanket not far from her side.

"You ought to go to bed," said Paula at length in a low voice to him.

"You need a good night's sleep."

"I'm too tired to sleep," said Barry. "I feel rather rotten, in fact. I ought to feel very grateful, but somehow I just feel rotten."

"Can one be grateful and feel rotten at the same time?" said Paula, making talk.

"Behold me," replied Barry. "I know I am grateful, but I do feel rotten.

I don't think I have even thanked you for risking your life for me," he added, turning toward her.

"Risking my life? Nonsense! I paddled 'round in the canoe for a bit, till two strong men came to tow me in, and would have, if I had allowed them. Thank the boys, who got you in time." She shuddered as she spoke.

"I do thank them, and I do feel grateful to them," said Barry. "It was rather a near thing. You see, I let him grip me. I choked him off my arms, but he slid down to my thigh, and I could not kick him off. Had to practically drown him. Even then he hung on."

"Oh, don't speak about it," she said with a shudder, covering her face with her hands. "It was too awful, and it might have been the end of you." Her voice broke a little.

"No, not an end," answered Barry, in a quiet voice. "Not the end by a long way, not by a very long way."

"What do you mean? Oh, you are thinking of immortality, and all that,"

said Paula. "It's a chilly, ghostly subject. It makes me shiver. I get little comfort out of it."

"Ghostly it is, if you mean a thing of spirits," said Barry, "but chilly! Why chilly?" Then he added to himself in an undertone: "I wonder! I wonder! I wish sometimes I knew more."

"Sometimes?" cried Paula. "Always!" she added passionately. "It's a dreadful business to me. To be suddenly snatched out of the light and the warmth, away from the touch of warm fingers and the sight of dear faces! Ah, I dread it! I loathe the thought of it. I hate it!"

"And yet," mused Barry, "somehow I cannot forget that out there somewhere there is One, kindly, genial, true,--like my dad. How good he has been to me--my dad, I mean, and that Other, too, has been good.

Somehow I think of them together. Yes, I am grateful to Him."

"Oh, God, you mean," said Paula, a little impatiently.

"Yes, to God. He saved me to-day. 'Saved,' I say. It is a queer way to speak, after all. What I really ought to say is that God thought it best that I should camp 'round here for a bit longer before moving in nearer."

"Nearer?"

"Yes, into the nearer circle. Life moves 'round a centre, in outer and inner circles. This is the outer circle. Nearer in there, it is kindlier, with better light and clearer vision. 'We shall know even as we are known.'" Barry mused on, as if communing with himself.