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 calm but a little puzzled and that she seemed to measure the distance shoreward. "You mean to save me?" she asked him.

He was trying to think what could be done before his father drowned. "We're saving you now," he said.

"You'll take me ashore?"

As she seemed so cool he thought he would explain his plan of operations, "Trying to get—end of ladder—kick with my legs. Only a few yards out of our depth—if we could only"

"Minute—get my breath—moufu' sea-water," said Mr. Bunting. Splash! wuff!

And then it seemed to Fred that a little miracle happened. There was a swirl of the water like the swirl about a screw propeller, and he gripped the Sea Lady and the ladder just in time, as it seemed to him, to prevent his being washed