say so, Glen, I'll trust you."

While he was laying aside his water-soaked clothing and preparing for
the dreaded undertaking, Glen suddenly uttered an exclamation of dismay.
He had spied several horsemen riding along the river-bank towards them.
Were they white men or Indians? Did their coming mean life or death?

"I'm afraid they are Indians," said Glen; "for our camp must be ten
miles off."

Binney agreed with him that they must have come at least that distance
during the night, and the boys watched the oncoming horsemen with heavy
hearts.

"I'd rather drown than let them get me again," said Glen.

But Binney had not had the other's experience with Indians, and to him
nothing could be more terrible than water.

Long and earnestly they watched, filled with alternate hopes and fears.
The riders seemed to move very slowly. All at once, Glen uttered a shout
of joy. "They are white men!" he cried. "I can see their hats;" and,
seizing his wet shirt, he began to wave it frantically above his head.

That his signal was seen was announced by a distant cheer, and several
shots fired in quick succession. A few minutes later, six white men
reined in their horses on the bank, just abreast the wagon. They were
hardly able to credit their eyes as they recognized, in the two naked
figures clinging to it, those whom they had been so certain were long
ago drowned, and for whose bodies they were searching. As they hurriedly
consulted concerning how best to effect a rescue, they were amazed to
see both boys clamber down from their perch, and drop into the turbid
waters, one after the other. When they realized that Glen and Binney
were swimming, and trying in this way to reach the shore, they forced
their horses down the steep bank and dashed into the shallow overflow of
the bottom-land to meet them.

At that moment Binney Gibbs, by trusting himself so implicitly to Glen's
strength and skill, in an element where he was so utterly helpless, was
displaying a greater courage than where, acting under impulse, he sprang
from his mule the day before, and ran back to fight Indians. The bravest
deeds are always those that are performed deliberately and after a
careful consideration of their possible consequences.

As "Billy" Brackett, who was the first to reach the boys, relieved Glen
of his burden, he exclaimed,

"Well, if I had the luck of you fellows I'd change my name to Vanderbilt
and run for Congress! We were sure you were gone