Chapter 15

THE RESCUE

As he went under, Sanson's first feeling was one of utter panic. The shock and cold, above all the horrible sense of suffocation, started him struggling as madly and ineffectually as Trexler had done a moment before. Then all at once, out of the whirling turmoil of fear which filled his soul, some vague remembrance of the brief lessons last summer stood forth, and he thrust downward with his feet. The motion was almost entirely instinctive, but the result was curiously steadying. The moment that downward movement ceased, his brain seemed to clear and he got a grip on himself.

"I mustn't come up under the ice," he found himself thinking, as he pushed vigorously upward again.

Then his head cleaved the water and he gulped in the blessed air in long, deep breaths. An instant later this was cut off by the grip of arms about his neck as Trexler, whom he had momentarily forgotten, clutched at him with all the strength and determination of despair.

That there were approved methods of releasing such grips Frank knew from repeated perusals of the scout handbook, but not a vestige of them stuck in his mind now. Full of wild panic, he struck out blindly with all his power. Trexler's head went back under the impact; his grasp slackened. Sanson had a momentary glimpse of the white face with half-closed eyes and twisted lips all a-swirl with water, and again that impulse that was stronger than panic made him reach out and catch hold of the boy's shoulder. At almost the same instant something hard grazed his cheek, and he realized that the force of his blow had sent him against one side of the hole. With a grasp of thankfulness, he caught at it, finding the ice here fairly substantial. He drew Trexler's body closer to him, and for the first time since the plunge he had a moment in which to think.

"I mustn't try and climb out or it'll break," he muttered. "Why don't the fellows come? They must have got out by now." He quite failed to realize how short a space of time it was since he had first started to Trexler's aid. "I can't hold on here much longer. I'm freezing now, and--"

His voice broke a little, but he bit his lip and choked back the sob in his throat. Then, summoning all his strength, he tried to shout for help, but the result was a hoarse croak that could not have been heard a hundred feet away. To his utter astonishment it was answered from close at hand.

"Hold tight, Frank; we're coming!"

It was Sherman Ward's voice. Sanson could scarcely believe his senses, even though a moment later he heard the scrape of skates and the grating of a sudden stopping. It took him a moment or two to realize that he had become turned around and was facing the inlet and the bridge, so that the fellows had been able to approach from down the lake without his seeing them.

"Get that branch there," he heard Sherman order crisply. "Hustle! Can you keep up a bit longer, Frank?"

"S-s-sure!" answered Sanson, through chattering teeth. "Only be as qu-quick as you c-c-can. P-P-Paul--"

"We'll be there in half a shake. That's it, Dale. Shove it across. Now, you fellows hold fast to that end while I go out."

There was a scraping sound and the end of a stout branch appeared in front of Sanson. Then, more slowly, Sherman's head and shoulders came in sight as he crept cautiously out along it.

"I'll take him first," he said. "Can you raise him up a little?"

"I'm afraid not. My arm's all numb, and--"

"All right," interrupted the patrol-leader. "I'll manage. Hold fast back there."

He wriggled forward a bit more and, reaching down, managed to catch Trexler under the arms. To draw him out of the water was a more difficult business, but Sherman had good muscles and accomplished it without accident. The ice creaked and groaned, but evidently had not been much weakened by the treacherous spring, and it held. The arm with which Frank had been supporting the boy had absolutely no feeling in it, and the strain of gripping the slippery ice was growing unendurable. He shifted his hold to the stick, however, and a moment later he was half lifted, half helped out on the solid ice.

"Yours for the cabin, quick!" said Ward, tersely. "Here, Ted, give us a hand."

MacIlvaine stepped quickly forward, and together they hustled Sanson across the ice. At first, Frank could scarcely move his feet and had to be practically carried along. But gradually the rapid motion, the stumbling, recovering, and general jolting-up began to send the blood tingling back into his chilled body. Ahead of them he could see Ranleigh and Dale Tompkins supporting Trexler, and making even better speed than his own conductors. The sight of that limp body, with one hand dangling helplessly, brought to Frank a sudden stinging pang of remorse and apprehension as he remembered the frenzied blow he had struck the fellow.

"Paul--" he gasped; "is he--"

"It's the cold and shock mostly, I think," answered Sherman. "He's all in, but not really unconscious. Did he go down?"

"I don't think so. Not more than once, anyway."

There was no more conversation until after they reached the cabin. Frank was able to stumble up the rocky slope unaided, and, once inside, his clothes were stripped off and he was rolled in blankets that had been heated before the roaring blaze. Muffled in these, with some of the boys deftly rubbing his legs and arms, it wasn't long before a delicious languor crept over him and he actually felt like dozing off to sleep.

He might have yielded to the impulse but for his anxiety about Trexler. Paul lay in the opposite bunk and was being subjected to the same treatment as Frank, but he did not seem to be responding as readily as the more robust fellow. Of course, he had been longer exposed to the cold and shock, but Sanson did not think of that. He was still worrying over the ruthless manner in which he had struck the boy, and fearful that in some way the blow might be responsible for Trexler's condition. When Mr. Curtis and the doctor appeared, summoned by one of the fellows who had ridden hastily back to town on his wheel, Frank watched them apprehensively. When the scoutmaster at length came over to his bunk he sat up abruptly and poured forth his doubts and fears before the older man had time to say a word.

Mr. Curtis listened quietly, and when the boy had finished he smiled reassuringly and shook his head. "You needn't worry about that, Frank," he said. "The doctor says he'll come around all right. He's pretty well done up from the exposure and shock, and you know he's never been so very strong. I don't think your hitting him has had much to do with it, but even if it had, no one could blame you. It was a question of that, or of both of you going down, and in such an emergency almost any methods are right. How are you feeling yourself?"

"Oh, I'm all right now, sir. There's nothing at all the matter with me. I don't see why I can't get up."

"Better not just yet. There's nothing special you can do. I have a car over by the bridge, and when Paul is fit to be moved, we'll all go back together."

"But I've got my wheel here," protested Frank.

"Let somebody else ride it in," returned Mr. Curtis. "After such a dousing there's no use taking chances." He paused a moment, his eyes fixed quizzically on the boy's face. "You can't swim, can you, Frank?" he went on presently.

"Oh, yes, sir!" the boy said hastily.

A faint smile curved the man's lips. "How much?" he asked quietly. "About six strokes?"

Sanson flushed, and a guilty grin overspread his face. "Make it eight, sir," he chuckled. "A fellow can't seem to fool you at all."

"And yet you went in after--"

"But I didn't!" interrupted Frank, earnestly. "I was reaching out with my hockey-stick, and the ice broke and dropped me in. I didn't mean to at all."

"Broke without any warning, I suppose," murmured Mr. Curtis. "You couldn't possibly have escaped--even by letting go your stick."

The boy's flush deepened, and he wriggled uncomfortably. "I--I--" he stammered, and then was silent.

The scoutmaster gave a low, contented laugh, and something in his glance sent an odd thrill through Sanson. He didn't analyze it. He only knew that all at once he had ceased to feel embarrassed and was happy and comfortable, and back of it all not a little proud of the thing which had won his scoutmaster's commendation.

"I won't bother you any more," smiled Mr. Curtis, as he turned away. "I had an idea that was about how it happened, though."

A pleasant glow crept over the boy, continuing even after he had got into his clothes and was making his way along the shore toward the bridge. It was still present to a certain extent next day, and, combined with a touch of remorse that lingered in the back of his mind, brought him in the afternoon to the Trexler house to inquire for Paul, who had not appeared at school. He did not expect to see the boy, and when Mrs. Trexler asked him to come in, he was seized with a mild sort of panic.

"I was afraid of a cold, so I kept him home to-day. I know he'll want to see you," she said as Frank stepped into the hall and closed the door reluctantly behind him. "I want to--"

She broke off abruptly, and Frank, flashing a single startled glance at her, saw that her eyes were full of tears. Instantly he dropped his own and stood awkwardly twisting his cap and wishing he hadn't come.

"I know boys hate being thanked," Mrs. Trexler went on presently in a voice which wasn't quite steady, "so I won't pester you with--with a mother's gratitude. I just want you to let me--"

She bent over suddenly and kissed him on the forehead. The boy flushed crimson and mumbled something about its being only what any fellow would have done. Would Paul go on this way, too, he wondered apprehensively as he followed her down the hall. He supposed it was natural for a woman to get all worked up, but if a fellow--

"Some one to see you, Paul," said Mrs. Trexler, cheerfully, pausing beside an open doorway.

She motioned for Frank to enter and then, to his relief, departed, leaving the two boys alone. Paul had been reading beside a window, but as Sanson appeared he stood up slowly. Though looking much better than he had the afternoon before, his face was still a little pale, and the visitor perceived, with a sudden sense of returning composure, that he, too, was overcome with embarrassment. Somehow the discovery made things a lot easier.

"I--I'm awfully glad you came in," Trexler stammered. He put out his hand awkwardly, but there was a vigor in his lingering grip that told something of the feelings words refused to express.

"You--weren't in school, so I thought maybe you were--sick, or something," Sanson returned. "Gee! What a dandy room!"

Now that the worst was over he began to be rather glad he had come, and stared about him with eager interest. Certainly it was a room to excite any boy's enthusiasm. Long and rather narrow, there were two windows on one side through which the winter sun poured cheerfully. Against the opposite wall, and filling almost the entire space, was a large glass-fronted case, containing the most amazingly realistic reproduction of woodland life the boy had ever seen.

Fastened in one corner was the gnarled crotch of a tree with a great, roughly built nest of twigs and leaves from which two baby hawks, their down just giving place to feathers, thrust up inquiring heads. At the other end of the case stood a section of a silvery white oak, with one long branch extending along the back. An owl perched here, teased by a blackbird with outstretched wings and open beak, and there were several birds'-nests among the branches. The lower part of the case was filled with small bushes, clumps of grass, and reeds, among which Frank noted quantities of other nests, some with eggs and some without, more mounted birds of various sorts, and several animals, such as a mink, two squirrels, and a skunk, all in the most lifelike attitudes. Turning from an eager inspection of the case, he stared at Trexler in amazement.

"It's the greatest thing I ever saw!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say you did it all yourself?"

Paul nodded, his pale face tinged with color, his eyes sparkling. "It isn't hard when you know how to stuff things," he said. "I took lessons in the city before we came out here last year. It's been lots of fun fixing them up."

"But how the deuce did you get 'em all?" Frank turned quickly back to the case again. "You must be a dandy shot."

"But I'm not! I hate to kill things--especially birds. You see, I go off for long tramps a lot, and in the winter especially you often find birds that have been frozen, or killed by flying into things. Some of them people gave me. A farmer that I know out near Alton shot that skunk and the mink in his chicken-yard. The quail and that woodcock came from down South. A cousin of mine sent them up, and I got Mother to let me take the skins off before she cooked them."

"How about the hawks--those are hawks, aren't they?"

"Sure. Red-shouldered hawks. I s'pose I oughtn't to have taken them, but I wanted to try taming some. I knew where there was a nest, and last spring I got up the tree with climbers and took two. They were awful funny the way they'd sit up and cry whenever they saw me coming. I guess I must have fed 'em too much, or something, for they died in about a week. I won't try it again, you bet!"

Paul looked rather sheepish as he made this confession, and hurried on to another subject. "It's the same way about the eggs. I used to take only one out of a nest, but Mr. Curtis said even that was pretty hard on the birds, so I stopped. I haven't taken any since I've been a scout. It's more fun, really, taking pictures."

"Pictures of birds' eggs?"

"Oh, eggs and nests and birds--anything wild. It's dandy sport. I've got quite a lot of good ones if you'd like to see them."

Frank quickly acquiesced, and as Paul went over to a desk for the photograph book, his eyes followed the boy with an odd expression in them. Hitherto he had regarded Trexler with a certain measure of tolerance as a queer, unsociable sort of fellow, who seldom took part in the sports and pastimes of the troop, but preferred moping by himself. It had never occurred to him that the solitary rambles could be productive of anything like the results he saw about him. As he glanced again at the case, a dawning respect began to fill him for the boy who could do all this and yet remain so modest that not a whisper of it leaked out among his companions.

That respect deepened as Frank turned the pages of the album and examined scores of photographs of feathered wild things. There were not alone pictures of the commoner birds, but many of the shyer sort, like the cardinal, the oven-bird, and several varieties of thrush which rarely emerge from the deep woodland, and they had been taken in all sorts of positions. Trexler had even succeeded in getting a very good photograph of the great blue heron, and his account of the difficulties of that enterprise filled Sanson with enthusiasm.

"It must be great!" he exclaimed eagerly. "I wish I could go along with you some time and see how you do it."

"Why don't you? I'd like to have you--awfully."

There could be no mistaking the earnestness of the invitation, and Frank took it up promptly.

"All right; that's a go. You let me know the next time you go out, and I'll be there like a runaway freight-train." He rose to go, for to his surprise it was growing dark; he had no idea he had stayed so long. "You've certainly got a corking place here," he said, glancing around for the last time. "Why, you ought to be able to rake in a whole lot of merit badges. There's taxidermy and bird study and--"

"I'm only a second-class scout," interrupted Trexler, briefly. He flushed a little and twisted his fingers together. "You see, I--can't swim. But I'm going to learn," he added determinedly. "I'm going to start in the minute the water's warm enough and keep it up till I get the hang of it, even if it takes all summer."

"Same here," laughed Frank, as they reached the front door. "We'll be two dubs together, won't we? Good-by, and thanks for showing me all the stuff."

Out in the street he thrust both hands deep in his pockets and started briskly homeward, whistling. Presently he stopped and laughed rather sheepishly.

"Gee!" he muttered. "It's funny how you can get a fellow's number wrong--it sure is!"