was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled
with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the
girl or the dog.

A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran
to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and
dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived
down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in
the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the
blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew.
The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished,
and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the
shore were louder than ever.

"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!"

Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled
along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his
hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack
of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was
reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and
again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else
in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man
arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and
grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the
river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.

"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little
chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers
are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!"

John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the
girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the
rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood
crying lustily.

"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes
had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to
satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely."

Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up
hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but
the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might
pull it loose. I've caught something!"

Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several
fe