Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/107

Rh the slush the child literally battled with the waters. Finding at length the mouth of the orifice, he pressed his tiny hands upon the aperture. For an instant they held back the gurgling waters. Looking round, Willie could see the two, unconscious of their danger, walking on further into the canal bed. When would they turn? Hours it seemed, as he struggled with the swelling flood.

Should he not escape while he could? The lake level was feet above him. His hands, his knees were stiff. He was drenched with the oozing waters. What! leave his friends to be drowned like rats! With redoubled energy the child held back the angry, baffled tide.

A watcher on the bank raised a gun to his shoulder.

"The darned little cuss. He'll give them time to get back yet! He is game though," he muttered, lowering his gun.

The waters shooting now from the fissure almost washed the child away. Now he was hurled down the bank. Now struggled up again, fighting with the flood for the life of his friends. Nails and knees were torn and bleeding. New fissures, through which the waters were gushing, appeared running upward from the orifice and enclosing a solid triangular mass of embankment.

"Run for your life, lad," rang another voice from the bushes. Unheeding, raising himself on tiptoe, pressing his whole weight against the mass that quivered under his hands, he stood there, staggering, dripping, bleeding; deluged with slush and clay as if holding back the mass that was quivering above him. He was eleven years old. Horace Bellmaine was younger by half, yet the words apply—