ry second or two he was in a
wider circle.

Tommy was awake now, and he could not stand still and see a boy drown
before his eyes. He knew that to attempt to save him was to face a
terrible danger, especially as he could not swim; but he kicked off
his boots. There was some gallantry in the man.

"You wouldna dare!" Corp cried, aghast.

Tommy hesitated for a moment, but he had abundance of physical
courage. He clenched his teeth and jumped. But before he jumped he
pushed the glove into Corp's hand, saying, "Give her that, and tell
her it never left my heart." He did not say who she was; he scarcely
knew that he was saying it. It was his dream intruding on reality, as
a wheel may revolve for a moment longer after the spring breaks.

Corp saw him strike the water and disappear. He tore along the bank as
he had never run before, until he got to the water's edge below the
Slugs, and climbed and fought his way to the scene of the disaster.
Before he reached it, however, we should have had no hero had not the
sapling, the cause of all this pother, made amends by barring the way
down the narrow channel. Tommy was clinging to it, and the boy to
him, and, at some risk, Corp got them both ashore, where they lay
gasping like fish in a creel.

The boy was the first to rise to look for his fishing-rod, and he was
surprised to find no six-pounder at the end of it. "She has broke the
line again!" he said; for he was sure then and ever afterwards that a
big one had pulled him in.

Corp slapped him for his ingratitude; but the man who had saved this
boy's life wanted no thanks. "Off to your home with you, wherever it
is," he said to the boy, who obeyed silently; and then to Corp: "He is
a little fool, Corp, but not such a fool as I am." He lay on his face,
shivering, not from cold, not from shock, but in a horror of himself.
I think it may fairly be said that he had done a brave if foolhardy
thing; it was certainly to save the boy that he had jumped, and he had
given himself a moment's time in which to draw back if he chose, which
vastly enhances the merit of the deed. But sentimentality had been
there also, and he was now shivering with a presentiment of the length
to which it might one day carry him.

They lit a fire among the rocks, at which he dried his clothes, and
then they set out for home, Corp doing all the talking. "What a town
there will be about this in Thrums!" was his text; and he was
surprised when Tommy at last