"What is it, Davy?" she shouted, as he stopped again.

"Miss Mary Bell, aren't we going toward the river!" he shouted back.

The sickness of utter despair weakened the girl's knees. But for a
moment only. Then she drew the elder boy back, and made him pass
her. Neither one spoke.

"Remember, they may come to meet us!" she would say, when Davy
rested spent and breathless on the rail. The water was pushing about
her waist, and was about his armpits now; to step carelessly into a
pool would be fatal. Billy she was managing to keep above water by
letting him step along the middle rail, when there was a middle
rail. They made long rests, clinging close together.

"They ain't ever coming!" sobbed Davy, hopelessly. "I can't go no
farther!"

Mary Bell managed, by leaning forward, to give him a wet slap, full
in the face. The blow roused the little fellow, and he bravely
stumbled ahead again.

"That's a darling, Davy!" she shouted. A second later something
floating struck her elbow; a boy's rubber boot. It was perhaps the
most dreadful moment of the long fight, when she realized that they
were only where they had started from.

Later she heard herself urging Davy to take just ten steps more,--
just another ten. "Just think, five minutes more and we're safe,
Davy!" some one said. Later, she heard her own voice saying, "Well,