y. The guide had no
time in which to fashion a loop, but he had thrown the rope doubled.
Fortunately the coil caught Chunky's right foot and the lad was hauled
back feet first, choking, half drowned, his head being dragged under
water despite his struggles to get free.

The instant they hauled him to the bank the Professor seized the lad
and began shaking him.

"Leggo! Lemme go, I tell you. I'm going after Tad!"

Stacy Brown was terribly in earnest this time. He was fighting mad
because they had pulled him back from what would have been sure death
to him. They had never given Stacy credit for such pluck, and Ned and
Walter gazed at him with new interest in their eyes. It was necessary
to hold the fat boy. He was still struggling, determined to go to
Tad's rescue.

In the meantime their attention had been drawn from Tad for the moment.
When they looked again they failed to find him.

"There he is," shouted Ned, as the boy was seen to rise from the water
and plunge head foremost into it again. Tad did not appear to be
fighting now.

"He's helpless! He's hurt!" cried the Professor.

"I reckon that's about the end of the lad," answered Nance in a low
tone. "There's nothing we can do but to wait."

"I see him again!" shouted Walter.

They could see the lad being tumbled this way and that, hurled first
away from the shore, then on toward it. Nance was regarding the
buffeted Pony Rider keenly. He saw that Tad was really nearing the
shore, but that he was helpless.

"What has happened to him?" demanded the Professor hoarsely. "Is he
drowned?"

"It's my opinion that he has been banged against a rock and knocked
out. I can't tell what'll be the end of it, but it looks mighty bad.
There he goes, high and dry!" fairly screamed Dad, while his whiskers
tilted upwards at a sharp angle.

Tad had been hurled clear of the water, hurled to the dry rocks on which
he had been flung as if the river wanted no more of him. The watchers
began to shout. They danced about almost beside themselves with anxiety.
No one could go to Tad's assistance, if, indeed, he were not beyond
assistance.

A full twenty minutes of this nerve-racking anxiety had passed when Dad
thought he saw a movement of Tad's form. A few moments later the boy
was seen to struggle to a sitting posture, where he sat for a short
time, both hands supporting his head.

Such a yell as the Pony Rider Boys uttered might have been heard clear
up on th