I felt the rope cutting my waist as Sim jerked and tugged at it with
all his strength. There was no lack of zeal on his part, but if anything
had depended upon coolness and skill, we might both have been drowned. I
kept a firm hold upon my helpless charge, and managed to keep her head
above the water, though my own was dragged under several times by the
clumsiness of my willing friend.

Sim pulled and hauled with energy, if not with skill. When he abandoned
the steering oar, the raft began to whirl, and thus to complicate his
labor. I caught a glance of the simple-minded fellow, as the craft
turned, and I heard him yell, "Hookie!" He was nonplussed by the change
of the raft; but he did not know enough to follow it round upon the
outside. I am not sure this freak of the current did not save us from a
calamity, for as it revolved, and the rope became tangled in the
platform, we were thrown against the raft, thus saving my helpmate half
his toil. Fortunately the end of the stick on which I floated struck the
logs first, and broke the force of what might otherwise have been a
stunning blow.

"Tie the rope, Sim!" I called to my assistant, who was now on the other
side of the raft.

"O, Buckland!" cried Flora, as she came out of the house and gazed at me
with an expression of intense pain.

"Hookie!" ejaculated Sim, rushing to the point where I had seized hold
of the raft.

[Illustration: AFTER THE EXPLOSION.--Page 221.]

He stood there, jumping up and down on both feet, bewildered and
helpless.

CHAPTER XX.

EMILY GOODRIDGE.

In the water, struggling for his own or another's life, a man's stock in
trade consists mainly of breath. Without that he can't do much, and
generally he fails for the want of it; not when life deserts him, but
when he might, by an economical use of it, have been able to save
himself. I had been in the water enough to learn this lesson, and to be
competent to advise all my young friends, in the moment of peril, to
refrain from useless and unreasonable struggling, for that wastes the
breath, and fritters away the strength.

I held on at the raft till I had recovered my breath, and felt strong
enough to make another effort; for I found that my own life and that of
my charge were to depend principally on my own exertions. Sim was
willing, but he was stupid; and I was afraid that some blunder of his
would yet lose me the battle.

I brought the helpless girl on my arm so that she c