e
plowed through the jumping waves with a great overhand stroke, suddenly
shrieked aloud:

"Oh, Betty!"

"What's the matter? Land sakes!"

Both saw the peril threatening the swimmer. The light skiff at the end
of the long painter whipped around when the line tautened. As Betty
cried out in echo to Louise's wail, the gunnel of the skiff crashed
down upon Lawford's head and shoulders.

"Oh! Oh! He's hurt!" cried Louise.

"He's drowned--dead!" ejaculated Betty Gallup. "Here, Miss Lou, you
take the wheel----"

But the girl had no intention of letting the old woman go overboard.
Betty in her heavy boots would be wellnigh helpless in the choppy sea.
If it were possible to rescue Lawford Tapp she would do it herself.

The human mind is a wonderfully constituted--mechanism, may we call it?
It receives and registers impressions that are seemingly incoordinate;
then of a sudden each cog slips into place and the perfection of a
belief, of an opinion, of a desire, even of a most momentous discovery,
is attained.

Thus instantly Louise Grayling had a startling revelation, "Handle the
boat yourself, Betty!" she commanded. "_I am going to get him_."

Her skirt was dropped, even as she spoke. She wore "sneaks" to-day
instead of high boots, and she kicked them off without unlacing them.
Then, poising on the rail for a moment, she dived overboard on a long
slant.

She swam under the surface for some fathoms and coming up dashed the
water from her eyes to stare about.

The black squall had passed. The sea dimpled in blue and green streaks
as before. A few whitecaps only danced about the girl. Where Lawford
had gone down----

A round, sleek object--like the head of a seal--bobbed in the agitated
water. It was not ten yards away. Had she not been so near she must
have overlooked it. He might have sunk again, going down forever, for
it was plain the blow he had suffered had deprived Lawford of
consciousness.

Louise wasted no breath in shouting, nor moments in looking back at
Betty and the sloop. All her life she had been confident in the water.
She had learned to ride a surfboard with her father like the natives in
Hawaii. A comparatively quiet sea like this held no terrors for Louise
Grayling.

She dived in a long curve like a jumping porpoise, and went down after
the sinking man. In thirty seconds she had him by the hair, and then
beat her way to the surface with her burden.

Lawford's face was dead