and ran with Ruth to the edge of the
water; but he knew the branch was a poor substitute for a rope.

"If she can cling to this, I'll get something better in a moment, Ruth!"
he exclaimed.

Swinging the small and bushy end of the branch outward, Tom dropped it
into the water just ahead of the imperiled girl. Ruth seized the butt with
her strong and capable hands.

"Cut off a length of that fence wire, Tommy," she ordered. "You have
wire-cutters in your auto kit, haven't you?"

"Sure!" cried Tom. "Never travel without 'em since we were at Silver
Ranch, you know. There! She's got it."

Hazel Gray had seized upon the branch. She was too exhausted to reach the
bank of the river without help, and just here the eddy began to swing her
around again, away from the shore.

The men of the company came running now, giving lusty shouts of
encouragement, but--that was all! The director had allowed the girl to get
into a perilous position on the leaning tree without having a boat and
crew in readiness to pick her up if she fell into the river. It was an
unpardonable piece of neglect, and there might still serious consequences
arise from it.

For the girl in the water was so exhausted that she could not long cling
to the limb. It was but a frail support between her and drowning.

When the men arrived Ruth feared to have them even touch the branch she
held, and she motioned them back. She knew that the girl in the stream was
almost exhausted and that a very little would cause her to lose her hold
upon the branch altogether.

"Don't touch it! I beg of you, don't touch it!" cried Ruth, as one excited
man undertook to take the butt of the branch.

"You can't hold it, Miss! you'll be pulled into the water."

"Never fear for me," the girl from the Red Mill returned. "I know what I
am about----Oh, goody! here comes Tom!"

She depended on Tom--she knew that he would do something if anybody could.
She gazed upon the wet, white face of the girl in the water and knew that
whatever Tom did must be done at once. Hazel Gray was loosing her hold.

"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed Helen, standing in the automobile with clasped
hands. "Don't let her drown, Tommy! Don't let her go down again--_don't_!"

Tom came, with grimly set lips, dragging about twenty feet of fence wire
behind him. Luckily it was smooth wire--not barbed. He quickly made a loop
in one end of it and wriggled the other end toward Ruth and the excited
men.

"Catch hold here!"