roof, advertising the company's output. The glare of
it could be seen for miles, and it lit up brilliantly the surroundings
of the mill.

Peter Newkirk bounded away to the main door of the works. The switch
that controlled the huge sign was just inside that door. Before Nan
and Bess had reached the edge of the broken ice, the electricity was
suddenly shot into the sign and the whole neighborhood was alight.

"I see him! There he is!" gasped Nan to her chum. "Hold me tight by the
skirt, Bess! We'll get him!"

She flung herself to her knees and stopped sliding just at the edge of
the old, thick ice. With a sweep of her strong young arm she shot the
end of the long muffler right into the clutching hands of the drowning
boy.

Involuntarily he seized it. He had been down once, and submersion in
the ice water had nearly deprived him of both consciousness and power
to help save himself. But Nan drew him quickly through the shattered
ice-cakes to the edge of the firm crystal where she knelt.

"We have him! We have him!" she cried, in triumph. "Give me your hand,
boy! I won't let you go down again."

But to lift him entirely out of the water would have been too much for
her strength. However, several men came running now from the stalled
passenger train. The lighting of the electric sign had revealed to them
what was going on upon the pond.

The man who lifted the half-drowned boy out of the water was not one of
the train crew, but a passenger. He was a huge man in a bearskin coat
and felt boots. He was wrapped up so heavily, and his fur cap was pulled
down so far over his ears and face, that Nan could not see what he
really looked like. In a great, gruff voice he said:

"Well, now! Give me a girl like you ev'ry time! I never saw the beat of
it. Here, mister!" as he put the rescued boy into the arms of a man who
had just run from a nearby house. "Get him between blankets and he'll be
all right. But he's got this smart little girl to thank that he's alive
at all."

He swung around to look at Nan again. Bess was crying frankly, with her
gloved hands before her face. "Oh, Nan! Nan!" she sobbed. "I didn't do a
thing, not a thing. I didn't even hang to the tail of your skirt as you
told me. I, I'm an awful coward."

The big man patted Nan's shoulder lightly. "There's a little girl that
I'm going to see here in Tillbury," he said gruffly. "I hope she turns
out to be half as smart as you are, sissy." Then he tramped back t