CHAPTER XIV

IN THE NICK OF TIME

Bess Harley clung to her chum in an agony of apprehension. Perhaps Nan would have utterly given way to terror, too, had she not felt herself obliged to bolster up poor Bess.

The wind shrieked so about the two girls, and the roar of the rain and sea so deafened them, that Nan could offer little verbal comfort. She could only hug Bess close to her and pat her shoulder caressingly.

Then suddenly Nan seized the bathing cap from her chum's head, and, pushing Bess aside, began to bail frantically with the rubber head covering. The rain and spray were rapidly sinking the canoe, and to free it of the accumulation of water was their only hope.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear, Nan!" groaned Bess, over and over.

Nan had no breath left for idle talk. She bailed out the water as fast as she could. The canoe was too water-logged already to be easily steered. The sea merely drove it on and on; providentially it did not broach to.

"Throw out the cushions!" Nan finally cried to her chum. "Throw them out, it will lighten the canoe a little."

"But--but we'll have to pay for them," objected Bess, for perhaps the first time in her life becoming cautious.

"Do as I say!" commanded Nan. "What are a few cushions if we can save our lives?"

"But we _can't_! We're sure to drown!" wailed Bess.

Nan was not at all sure that this was not true. She would not, however, own up that she thought so.

"You do as I say, Bess!" she ordered. "Throw out the cushions! Never mind if we drown the next minute!"

"You--you are awful!" sobbed Bess.

Nevertheless, she jerked the cushions out over the side. One after the other they floated away. Then Nan was suddenly stricken with fear. Maybe she had done the wrong thing. By the way the cushions floated they might be of cork and if worse came to worst, they might have been used as life-preservers.

But the canoe was lightened. Nan unhooked a chair-back amidships and threw it overboard. All the time she was bailing faithfully. After being thus lightened, the canoe began to rise upon the waves more buoyantly.

Perhaps, however, that was because the rain had passed over. The driving sleet-like fall of it had saturated the two girls in the canoe. They could be no wetter now--not if they were completely engulfed by the rising sea.

The violence of the wind had actually beaten the sea down; but behind the squall, as it swept on, the waves were rising tumultuously.

"This won't last long--it _can't_ last long," Nan thought.

She raised her eyes to look about. The darkness of evening seemed already to hover upon the bosom of the lake. The boat-landing and boathouse were both out of sight. On the crag-like bluff the Hall was merely a misty outline, hanging like a cloud-castle in the air.

Bess was crying steadily. Nan thought of her mother and her father, so far away. If anything happened to her they would be a long time finding it out.

And there was Uncle Henry and Aunt Kate and the boys! They would feel very bad, Nan knew, if anything happened to her. So would Toby Vanderwiller and Mrs. Vanderwiller and Corson. And perhaps queer little Margaret Llewellen and her brother, Bob----

Was it the spray, or did tears fill Nan Sherwood's eyes so that she could see nothing moving on the face of the wild waters? Yet, of a sudden, there came into hearing the sharp, staccato report of an engine exhaust.

"A motor boat!" Nan gasped, still bailing desperately.

The sputtering noise drew nearer.

"Oh, Bess!" Nan cried.

"Oh, Nan!" responded her chum.

"Do you hear it?"

"It's that boat," Bess said, sniffling. "If they only see us!"

"Can you see them?"

Nan could not stop bailing. Every now and then a wave would slop over the side and the canoe would settle deeper in the lake.

Bess climbed unsteadily to her knees. Hope revived in her breast. She wiped the spray out of her eyes with the back of her hand and stared all about. Yes! there was the darting motor boat.

"It's Walter!" she cried to her chum.

"Does he see us?"

"He's--he's going ri-i-ight past!" wailed Bess.

"Wave to him! Shout to him!" commanded Nan.

"A lot of good tha-a-at'll do!" pursued the unhappy Bess. "They're so-o fa-a-ar away."

Nan uttered a shriek just then that must have been heard a long way down wind. A big wave boarded them, filling the canoe almost full, and throwing Bess on her face. Nan seized her chum and drew her up out of the water so that she might get her breath.

The canoe shook and staggered. It was going down! Another such shipment of water and the girls would be engulfed!

"Scream! Let's both scream together!" commanded Nan.

Her chum's cry was a very weak one indeed. But Nan's voice rang out vigorously across the waves.

"Help! We're sinking!"

Almost immediately an answering cry came down the wind:

"Hold o-on! We're coming!"

"I'd like to know what we're to hold onto," gasped Nan, kneeling waist-deep in the water.

She had to hold up Bess, who was almost ready to collapse. Left to herself, Nan's chum would have succumbed before the motor boat arrived. It was Walter's boat. To Nan's surprise, his sister and Linda Riggs were still with him.

"Stand by for the buoy!" called out Walter, and flung the inflated ring attached to a strong line.

It floated near the submerged canoe almost at once. Nan felt the canoe going down, and with her arm about Bess, she flung herself away from the sinking craft.

"Oh! oh!" gurgled Bess.

"Keep up!" cried Nan.

"Don't sink, girls!" shouted Walter Mason. "I'll get you!"

He, however, had his hands pretty full with the boat. It had lost headway and was inclined to swing broadside to the waves, which, every minute, were running higher.

Nan and Bess were both good swimmers; yet Bess was now all but helpless through fright. She would have sunk immediately had not Nan's arm been about her.

Nan struck out for the bobbing ring. A wave carried them toward the life-buoy and as they fell down the slant of that wave, they fairly plunged onto the big canvas-covered ring.

"I've got it!" yelled Nan, exultantly; and the next moment water filled her mouth and she swallowed so much that she felt almost water-logged.

"Hang on!" shouted Walter, encouragingly.

He started the screw again. Grace, who was thoroughly frightened, made out, however, to hold the wheel steady. Walter ran to the stern and drew in the life-buoy, towing the imperiled girls round to leeward of the plunging motor boat.

The rescue was barely in the nick of time. They lifted Bess Harley over the low rail of the _Bargain Rush_, almost senseless. Nan managed to climb in unaided. They were not much wetter than those already aboard the motor boat.

Linda was very ill, and hung over the rail forward. Grace was crying, amidships, and trying to steer the boat while Walter tinkered with the engine. Bess and Nan lay in the cockpit, recovering from their fight with the sea.

It was a very miserable party, indeed.