rger
and larger as the visiting teams made their triumphal progress through the
great cities of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.

Inspired by their reception and put upon their mettle by the great
outpouring of spectators, the teams themselves played like demons. One
might almost have thought that they were fighting for the pennant.

They were so evenly matched that first one and then the other was on top,
and by the time they reached Melbourne the Giants were only one game in
the lead of the total that had been played since the trip began.

Melbourne itself with its romantic history and magic growth proved very
attractive. But Joe was destined to remember it for very different
reasons.

While walking with Jim one day outside the town near the Yarra Yarra
river, they were startled by hearing a cry for help, and racing toward the
sound they saw a young girl struggling in the water.

Trained by their vocation to act quickly, they threw off their coats,
plunging into the water almost at the same instant. They swam fiercely,
lashed on by that frantic wail, sounding fainter each time it was
repeated.

The race for a life was almost neck and neck until Joe, showing his
tremendous reserve strength, shot ahead at the very end, grasping the
struggling figure as it was sinking for the last time.

Jim helped, and together they brought the rescued girl--the long dank
black hair testified to her sex--back to shore, where a group of the
native blacks, attracted by the cries, had gathered to welcome them.

Dripping and exhausted, the two heroes of the occasion staggered up the
bank while willing hands relieved them of their burden.

"Let's beat it," whispered Jim, as the crowd of natives closed around the
unconscious object of their heroism, "while the going's good. If that girl
ever finds out that you rescued her she'll want to attach herself to you
for life. That seems to be the fool custom of these parts."

"She'd find it pretty hard work," said Joe, with a wry smile. "Besides, we
don't even know that the girl's alive. It would be pretty heartless to
clear out without learning."

"Oh, all right," said Jim, uneasily. "But remember, if there are any
consequences you've got to take 'em."

At that moment the crowd opened and the boys saw a remarkably good-looking
black girl standing dizzily and supported by another native who might have
been her father.

She looked dazedly from one to the other of the young men