a tree whose branches overhung the river, the better to conceal himself, when, making an unsafe step, he was precipitated into the waters below. Young though Donald was, he had great presence of mind, and one of the things he had been taught was how to swim. He hesitated not a moment therefore, but stripping off his coat plunged in after his little friend. He knew that neither of his playmates could swim, and so Georgie must inevitably be drowned unless he could save him. He struck out boldly after the drowning boy, and was not long in finding him, but the difficulty was how to hold him up after he was found. Georgie grasped him by the leg with a death-like grip, and the two went down together, but in a moment came to the surface again. A thought now suggested itself to Charlie Spence, who stood in an agony on the shore. If Donald only had a board, it would bear them both up. He acted on this idea at once. A board-fence, or paling as it is called in Scotland, ran right across the meadow at this place. He seized a large stone near, and, by two or three rapid and desperate blows, detached one of the boards and threw it into the river just as near as he could to the place where the boys had disappeared, for they had gone down again. As it touched the water, they once more came to the surface, and, strange to say, within a very few feet of the board. Donald made one desperate stroke with his hands and his arm was over it. He raised his drowning companion, but, alas, consciousness was gone, and Georgie could do nothing to help himself. Still, by the aid of this board, Donald could easily support him. A new danger, however, now presented itself; the current was both rapid and strong, and tended directly to the race-way of the old mill, a little way below. Once in that race-way, all hope would be at an end, for they would be carried directly over the great water-wheel and dashed to pieces. He strove, therefore, with all his might to reach the shore; but, with the dead weight of Georgie depending, he made little progress. |