GRANT TO THE RESCUE.

Piper’s trembling hands clutched Grant and clung to him.

“I’m going too,” said Sleuth huskily. “It’s ten to one this old hut comes down in the storm. I wouldn’t stay here, anyhow.”

“I don’t reckon I would myself,” acknowledged Rod.

“Then,” said Piper, tugging at him, “we’d better hustle. If I know Springer, he won’t stop this side of Camp Oakdale, and we don’t want to be left on this island with no way of getting off.”

“That wouldn’t be pleasant,” confessed Rod, “though I don’t opine Phil would desert us. He’ll wait for us.”

“Don’t you believe it,” spluttered Sleuth as they reached the open air. “If we want to stop him before he gets away with the canoe, we’ve got to make tracks.”

Stumbling across the glade, they found the path, along which they dashed, Piper in advance. Reaching branches whipped them across their faces, and it seemed that the black thickets on every hand contained a thousand menacing terrors. True, Grant was not as frightened as Piper, but the moment he began running he was overcome to some degree by that fear-compelling sensation known to every boy who has fled in the dark from a menacing creation of his fancy. Occasional flashes of lightning served only to blind them and make the ensuing gloom seem deeper and blacker. The thunder-shocks beat upon their ears, but as yet no rain fell.

Panting heavily, they came out suddenly upon the shore and realized they were some distance from the place where the canoe had been left. In his confusion and excitement Sleuth turned in the wrong direction, but Grant checked him by calling sharply:

“This way, Piper—the canoe is this way!”

“No,” said Sleuth, “you’re wrong; it’s this way.”

But, fearing to be left alone on that terrible island, he turned and followed Rod.

In a few moments they discovered Springer in the act of launching the canoe, and Grant shouted at him angrily.

“What do you reckon you’re doing?” cried the exasperated Texan. “Are you trying to run away and leave us, you coward?”

Phil’s face was almost ghastly, but he paused and waited for them. “I wasn’t gug-going away,” he declared.

“It sure didn’t look like it!” retorted Rodney sarcastically.

“I was just gug-going to get the canoe into the water and wait for you,” explained Springer. “I’m gug-glad you’ve come. It isn’t raining yet, and——”

“But it will be right soon. We’re due to get a drenching if we start out.”

“We’ll get a dud-drenching if we stay here.”

“We might,” suggested Sleuth, with pretended bravado, “succeed in finding poor shelter beneath the thickest pines.”

“And a sus-soaking on the water won’t be any worse than one on land,” argued Phil.

“I was not thinking of the rain,” said Rod, casting a glance toward the black, lightning-torn clouds; “it’s the wind we’ve got to reckon on. We don’t want to be swamped out in the middle of the lake.”

But now Piper joined Springer in urging him away, and, yielding, he got into the canoe and seized one of the paddles.

“Lively!” he ordered. “Get in and push off. Show what you’ve got in your arms, Phil.”

“You bet I will,” promised Springer.

Away from the island shot the canoe, propelled by all the vigor they could muster. Only a few rods had they paddled when there arose from the depths of the pines the mournful howling of a dog, which was drowned by another tremendous peal of thunder. Even this, however, could not spur them to put more strength into the paddle strokes, for already they were doing their best.

Their one object, now, was to do their utmost to reach Pleasant Point before the storm should come upon them in all its fury, or at least to get as near the point as possible; for they knew that to be caught far from shore in the canoe while the open lake was being swept by such a burst of wind as often accompanies severe thunderstorms would be not only most uncomfortable, but, in all probability, extremely perilous.

Between the thunder-claps they could hear afar in the mountains a low and ominous moaning, but even Sleuth turned no backward glance toward the black sky that seemed to shut down perpendicularly not far beyond the white cross that marked Lovers’ Leap. As yet, although the surface of the lake was broken and dark, there seemed little wind, save occasional puffing blasts of short duration.

So intent were they upon their own business that it was some time before they perceived the small white sail of a boat somewhat to the right of their course. With each wind gust the sail filled and dipped, but between the puffs it was barely taut, and the boat, a tiny, punt-like affair, was moving slowly. Only one person could be seen, and he sat in the stern of the boat, steering.

“That gent sure better hustle some,” observed Grant, “unless he’s anxious to get a proper ducking. If he has oars, he’s foolish not to use them. We’re traveling twice as fast as he is, and we’ll soon be passing him.”

“A fellow might think him dud-deaf and dud-dumb and blind,” said Springer. “If he hears or sees the storm, he’s a chump not to get a move on.”

Piper opened his lips to make a remark, but a jagged, hissing spurt of lightning caused him to duck involuntarily and hold his breath, awaiting the thunder that must follow. It came, crashing and flung back in reverberations from the mountains, and Sleuth shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

“Next time I visit Spirit Island,” he declared, “I shall take special pains to make sure there’s no thunderstorm on tap.”

“Nun-next time!” scoffed Phil. “I’ll bet there isn’t money enough to hire you to go there again.”

“Speak for yourself, my friend,” retorted Sleuth, “and judge not the courage of others by your own cowardice.”

“Cowardice! Bah! You were sus-scared almost stiff.”

“But I didn’t run away.”

The moaning sound was growing louder and more distinct, changing gradually but swiftly to a suppressed, smothered roar. The black sky seemed to close over Lovers’ Leap and blot it out. The rain was coming, a few drops of the advance guard pattering around the canoe, in which the two paddle-wielders continued to exercise the full strength of their arms.

They had been seen by Crane and Stone, both of whom were now standing well out upon the point, watching them with no small anxiety.

Like the trio returning from Spirit Island, the person in the sail-driven boat seemed to be making for Pleasant Point, and they were now so near that they recognized him as he, looking round, appeared to discover them for the first time.

“Well, I’ll be dud-dished!” exclaimed Springer. “It’s our friend, James Simpson, Esquire. Seems to me he’s planning to make a cuc-call at our camp.”

“A right good time for him to come around if he intends to provoke further trouble,” muttered Rodney. “I’d advise him to lower that sail and use his oars. I opine there’s going to be something doing in the hurricane line directly.”

“You bet,” agreed Piper, as the roaring sound increased with surprising rapidity. “Here she comes now.”

“Hold the canoe steady, Phil,” admonished the Texan.

With a shriek the wind swept over them, tearing the surrounding water into foam. In a twinkling, almost, it struck the sail of Simpson’s boat, and in another twinkling the tiny craft upset, pitching its occupant into the lake.

“I knew it, the chump!” cried Grant above the screaming of the wind. “He’s got his ducking ahead of the rainstorm.”

“Wonder if he can sus-swim?” shouted Phil apprehensively. “Don’t want to see the pup-poor feller drowned.”

“He sure ought to know how to swim, living near this lake,” returned Rodney. “Where is he, anyhow?”

“There! there!” cried Sleuth, pointing, as a head appeared some distance from the capsized boat. “Look at the idiot! See him throw up his hands! Stone and Crane are shouting to us. Great marvels! He can’t swim!”

Already, with a sweep of his paddle, Grant had pointed the canoe toward the overturned boat and the youth who, splashing wildly only a short distance from it, seemed quite unable to reach and grasp it for support.

“Pull, Springer—pull for all you’re worth!” he commanded.

The driving blast of wind aided in speeding them toward the imperiled fellow.

“If he gets hold of this canoe he’ll upset it!” palpitated Piper.

Simpson’s head disappeared from view and was not seen again for several moments, after which his frantic efforts shot his body above the surface halfway to the waist line. Gulping, gasping, terrified by the experience through which he was passing, the fellow turned his blanched face and appealing eyes toward the three boys who were now bearing down upon him.

Almost invariably persons who find themselves in deep water and cannot swim strive desperately to lift their bodies as high as possible and thus aid in their own undoing, and this was precisely what Jim Simpson did. Had he simply paddled gently with his hands and held his breath whenever his head went under, lacking in a rudimentary knowledge of swimming though he was, he might have kept afloat for some moments; by his tremendous struggles, however, he baffled himself and made it imperative that his would-be rescuers should reach him quickly.

“He’s gone—he’s gone again!” screamed Sleuth, as Grant once more slightly altered the course of the canoe.

“Keep down! Keep low in the canoe and sit steady!” commanded Rodney. Then, rising, he did a difficult thing to do under the most favorable circumstances; he dove headlong from the canoe without upsetting it. With three strong strokes beneath the water he reached Simpson, whose collar he grasped with one hand at the back of the neck. They rose together, the Texan holding the other off and striking out as well as he could for the capsized boat.

The excited boys watching from the point uttered a cheer. Then the rain swept over the lake in a tremendous blinding cloud, shutting from their view the canoe, its occupants, and the two fellows in the water.