it appeared. Would she be able to save her?

Margaret Moore turned her white face up to Heaven, and her lips moved;
then she reached forward, plunged her right arm desperately down into
the ice-cold water, grasped at the sinking form, and caught it; but she
could not draw the body up.

"Jessie Bain! Jessie Bain!" she cried; "you will slip away from me! I
can not hold you!

"Help! help!" she shrieked, in terror. But there was no help at hand.

All in vain were her pitiful cries. Margaret's hands were torn and
bleeding, and slowly but surely freezing. They must soon relax their
hold, and poor Jessie Bain would slip down, down into a watery grave.

Ten, twenty minutes passed. Surely it was by a superhuman effort that
that slender arm retained its burden; but it could not hold out much
longer.

So intense was her terror, Margaret Moore did not realize her own great
physical pain. By an almost superhuman effort she attempted to cry out
again.

This time she was successful. Her voice rose shrill and clear over the
barren waste of frozen ice, over the waving trees, and down the road
beyond. It reached the ears of a man who was hurrying rapidly through
the snow-drifts.

CHAPTER XXI.

IT IS SO HARD FOR A YOUNG GIRL TO FACE THE WORLD ALONE.

"Help! help!" the words echoed sharp and clear again through the frosty
morning air, and this time the man walking hurriedly along the road
heard it distinctly, paused, and turned a very startled face toward the
river.

It required but a glance to take in the terrible situation; the young
girl stretched at full length on the ice, holding by main strength,
something above the aperture in the ice; it was certainly a woman's
head.

"Courage, courage!" he cried in a voice like a bugle blast. "Help is at
hand! Hold on!" And in less time than it takes to tell it, he had
reached the girl's side.

"Save her, save her!" gasped Margaret Moore. "My hands are frozen; I can
not hold on any longer;" and with this she sunk back unconscious, and
the burden she held would have slipped from her cramped fingers back
into the dark, cold waves had not the stranger caught it in time. It
required all his strength, however, to draw the body, slim though it
was, from the water.

One glance at the marble-white face, and he uttered a little cry:

"Great Heaven! if it isn't Jessie Bain!"

Laying his dripping burden on the bank, the man lost no time in
dragging Margaret Moore back from her p