r
help that rolled in deep echoes among the overhanging cliffs. Another
shout was uttered at the same instant. Edith, who happened to come up
just as La Roche's head emerged from the water gasping for breath,
uttered a wild shriek that made more than one heart among the absentees
leap as they flew to the rescue.

Meanwhile La Roche rose and sank several times in the surges of the
pool. His face on these occasions exhibited a mingled expression of
terror and mischievous wildness; for although he could not swim a
stroke, the very buoyancy of his mercurial temperament seemed partially
to support him, and a feeling of desperate determination induced him to
retain a death-like gripe of the rod, at the end of which the salmon
still struggled. But his strength was fast going, and he sank for the
fourth time with a bubbling cry, when a step was heard crashing through
the adjacent bushes, and Dick Prince sprang down the slope like a deer.
He did not pause when the scene burst upon his view, but a smile of
satisfaction played upon his usually grave face when he saw Edith safe
on the banks of the stream. Another spring and an agile bound sent him
headlong into the pool about a yard from the spot where La Roche had
last sunk. Scarcely had he disappeared when the dog Chimo bounded
towards the scene of action, and, with what intent no one could tell,
leaped also into the water. By this time Frank, Stanley, and nearly all
the party had assembled on the bank of the river, ready to render
assistance. In a few seconds they had the satisfaction of seeing Dick
Prince rise, holding poor La Roche by the collar of his capote with his
left hand, while he swam vigorously towards the shore with his right.
But during the various struggles which had taken place they had been
gradually sucked into the stream that flowed towards the lower rapid,
and it now became apparent to Prince that his only chance of safety was
in catching hold of the point of rock that formed the first obstruction
to the rush of water. Abandoning all effort, therefore, to gain the
bank beside him, he swam with the current, but edged towards the shore
as he floated down.

"Hallo! La Roche!" he exclaimed loudly. "Do you hear? do you
understand me?"

"Ah! oui, vraiment. I not dead yit."

"Then let go that rod and seize my collar, and mind, sink deep in the
water. Show only enough o' your face to breathe with, or I'll drown
ye."

The Frenchman obeyed to the ext