Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/189

Rh the bigger boys. They got down on the ice, forming a second living chain, and hitching forward, the tutor seized the half-conscious girl's hand. The others drew back and dragged Mr. Hargreaves, with the girl, to firm ice.

Meanwhile Tom, with Ruth to help him, struggled manfully to get Bob Steele out. That youngster was by no means helpless, and they accomplished the rescue smartly.

"And that's thanks to you, Ruthie!" declared Tom, when the tutor and Miss Reynolds had hurried the half-drowned girl and young Steele off to the Minnetonka. "I'd never have gotten him but for you—and look at your coat!"

"It will dry," laughed the girl from the Red Mill. "Let's hurry after them, Tom. You're wet a good deal, too—and I shall miss my coat, being so heated. Come on!"

But she could not escape the congratulations of the girls and boys when they reached the steamboat. Even Mary Cox's closest friends gathered around Ruth to thank her. Nobody could gainsay the fact that Ruth had been of great help in the recovery of Mary and Bob from the lake.

But Helen! had the other girls—and Miss Reynolds—not been in the little cabin of the boat which had been given up to the feminine members of the party, she would have broken down and