inister pools. "They are all
dancing now!" she said aloud, wonderingly, when she had reached the
opposite rail, with a fast-beating heart. After an endless period of
plunging and shouting, she was at the water's very edge.

There was light enough to see the ruffled, cruel surface of the river,
where its sluggish forces swept into the bay. Idly bumping the grasses
was something that brought Mary Bell's heart into her throat. Then she
cried out in relief, for it was not the thing she feared, but the
little deserted boat, right side up.

"That means they left her!" said Mary Bell, trembling with nervous
terror. She shouted again in the darkness, before turning for the
homeward trip. It seemed very long. Once she thought she must be going
aimlessly back and forth on the same bit of rail, but a moment more
brought her to the missing rail again, and she knew she had been right.
Blown by the wind, struck by the now flying rain, deafened by the
gurgling water and the rising storm, she fought her way back to the
fire again. The others were all there, and with them three cramped and
chilled little boys, crying fright and relief, and clinging to the
nearest adult shoulder. The Chinese boy and Grandpa Barry had found
them, standing on a hummock that was still clear of the rising tide,
and shouting with all their weary strength.

"Oh, thank God!" said Mary Bell, her heart rising with sudden hope.

"We'll get the others, now, please God!" said Henderson, quietly. "We
were working too far over. You said they were all right when you left
them, Lesty?" he said to one of the shivering little lads.

"Ye-es, sir!" chattered Lesty, eagerly, shaking with nervousness. "They
was both all right! Davy wanted to git Billy over to the fence, so if
the tide come up!"--terror swept him again. "Oh, Mr. Henderson, git
'em--git 'em! Don't leave 'em drowned out there!" he sobbed
frantically, clutching the big man with bony, wet little hands.

"I'm going to try, Lesty!"

Henderson turned back to the marsh, and Mary Bell went too.

"Billy who?" said Mary Bell; but her heart told her, before Henderson
said it, that the answer would be, "Jim Carr's kid brother!"

"Are you good for this?" said Henderson, when the four fittest had
reached that part of the marsh where the boys had been found.

She met his look courageously, his lantern showing her wet, brave young
face, crossed by dripping strands of hair.

"Sure!" she said.

"Well, God bless you