then blow came he fell backward, and,
making no effort to control the situation, slid over the bank and into
the water.

[Illustration: IN A TWINKLING HE WAS IN THE WATER]

The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly, but
there was no jeering from the bridge.

Stephen had seen Alcestis slip, and in the fraction of a moment had
taken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks behind him
in a twinkling he was in the water, almost as soon as the boy himself.

"Doggoned idjut!" exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. "Wuth the hull fool
family! If I hedn't 'a' be'n so old, I'd 'a' jumped in myself, for you
can't drownd a Wiley, not without you tie nail-kegs to their head an'
feet an' drop 'em in the falls."

Alcestis, who had neither brains, courage, nor experience, had, better
still, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried swiftly down
the current; but, only fifty feet away, a long, slender, log, wedged
between two low rocks on the shore, jutted out over the water, almost
touching its surface. The boy's clothes were admirably adapted to the
situation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the log
caught in the rags of Alcestis's coat and held him just seconds enough
to enable Stephen to swim to him, to seize him by the nape of the neck,
to lift him on the log, and thence to the shore. It was a particularly
bad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do but to lower ropes
and drag the drenched men to the high ground above.

Alcestis came to his senses in ten or fifteen minutes, and seemed as
bright as usual: with a kind of added swagger at being the central
figure in a dramatic situation.

"I wonder you hedn't stove your brains out, when you landed so turrible
suddent on that rock at the foot of the bank," said Mr. Wiley to him.

"I should, but I took good care to light on my head," responded
Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old Kennebec that he mused
over it for some hours.

HEARTS AND OTHER HEARTS

Stephen had brought a change of clothes, as he had a habit of being
ducked once at least during the day; and since there was a halt in the
proceedings and no need of his services for an hour or two, he found
Rose and walked with her to a secluded spot where they could watch the
logs and not be seen by the people.

"You frightened everybody almost to death, jumping into the river,"
chided Rose.

Stephen laughed. "They thought I was a fool