title="12"/> the possibility of her ever seeing Briarwood Hall again was somewhat doubtful!

The hurrying water tugged at her as though a hundred hands had laid hold of her person. She was nearly arm-pit deep in the flood, and her uncle's body was so heavy that she had all she could do to hold his head above the surface.

She could not get him back into the boat, even, and perhaps that would not have been a wise move. For the old skiff, shaking and rocking, was likely to be torn free by the battling current. If it should swing into deep water, it must sink almost at once, for the water was pouring in through the hole that had been battered in its side.

The flour was fast becoming saturated with the river-water, and its increased weight would bear the boat to the bottom, if it slipped from the reef.

Unable to see any good of boarding the boat again, Ruth tried to work her way along the reef until she stood upon a higher part of it. Uncle Jabez was unconscious, blood flowed from a deep cut on his head, and he lay a dead weight in her arms.

Never had Ruth Fielding been in greater peril. She was frightened, but mostly for the old man who seemed so seriously hurt.

Tossing her loosened hair out of her eyes, she stared longingly at the landing near Lakeby's store. It was some distance up-stream, and not a person was in sight. She feared, too, that it was too far away for her voice to carry.

Yet she must scream for help. She shouted again and again, endeavoring to put all the strength of her voice into the cries. Was that an answer? The girl held her uncle high in her arms and looked all about.

Nobody was at the store landing. Nobody was behind on the other shore of the river—and she was glad that Aunt Alvirah and Mercy had not seen the accident, for neither of them could have helped in this predicament.

Yes! there was the repeated shout—and nearer. Ruth's eyes turned to the north shore of the Lumano again. There was somebody running down the bank—not near the store kept by Timothy Lakeby, but directly opposite the rock on which the old boat had stranded.

"Oh! oh! Help! help!" shrieked the girl of the Red Mill.

"Hold on! I'm coming!"

The voice came to her more strongly than before. She could not see who the person was, but she knew he was alone. She could not imagine how he was to aid them.

Why did he not run to the store and bring other men to help? There! he seemed to have leaped right into the river!

"Oh, dear me! the strongest swimmer could not reach us, let alone help Uncle Jabez ashore," was Ruth's thought.

But up came the figure into sight again. Dripping, of course, now he stood firmly on a peak of rock that was thrust above the tide, and shook back the long black hair from his eyes.

He was a wild looking person. His feet were bare and his ragged trousers were rolled to his knees. He wore neither vest nor coat, and his shirt was open at his throat. To Ruth he seemed very bronzed and rough looking.

But whoever, or whatever, he might be, the girl prayed that he would prove able to rescue Uncle Jabez. She felt that she could save herself, but she was having all she could do to bear up the unconscious miller.

"Hold on!" shouted the rescuer again.

Once more he plunged forward. He disappeared off the rock. Was he swimming again? The half-overturned boat hid him from Ruth's gaze.

Suddenly he shouted close at hand. Up he bobbed on the higher point of rock just beyond the boat.

"What's the matter, Missy?" he demanded. "Is the old man hurt?"

"He hit his head. See! he is unconscious," explained Ruth.

"I'll get him! Look out, now; I've got to push off this old boat, Missy. She ain't no good, anyway."

Ruth saw that he was a big, black-haired, strong looking boy. His complexion was very dark and his eyes sparkling—like cut jet beads. He might have been seventeen or eighteen years old, but he was fully as tall, and apparently as strong, as an ordinary man.

His long hair curled and was tangled like a wild man's. His beard had begun to grow on his lip and chin. In his ears Ruth saw small gold rings and his wrists and forearms—which were bared—were covered with an intricate pattern of tattooing in red and blue ink.

Altogether, she had never seen so strange a boy in all her life—and certainly none so strong. He leaped into the broken boat, seized Ruth's oar that had not been lost in the overset, and bracing it against the rock, pushed the trembling boat free in a moment.

Ruth could not repress a scream. It looked as though he, too, must be thrown into the river, as the boat was caught by the current and jerked free.

But the wild boy laughed and leaped upon the higher part of the rock. As the miller's old boat drifted down stream, he sprang into the water again and reached the girl and her burden.

"Give him to me!" commanded the boy. "I can bear him up better than you, Missy. We'll get him ashore—and you can't be any wetter than you are now."

"Oh, never mind me!" cried Ruth. "I am not afraid of a ducking. And I can swim."

"You don't want to try swimming in this place, Missy," he returned. "You follow right behind me—so."

He turned, carrying the heavy figure of the miller in his arms as though he weighed but a hundred pounds instead of nearer two, and set off toward the shore along the ledge of rock by which he had come.

Ruth saw, now, that beyond where the boat had been wrecked, the rock joined the shore, with only here and there a place where it was deep under water.

She saw, too, that the boat was now sinking. It had not sailed ten yards in the fierce current before its gunwales disappeared. It sank in a deeper channel below—flour and all! Ruth realized that Uncle Jabez would be sorely troubled over the loss of those bags of flour.

Ruth paddled to the shore behind the strong boy, but before they really reached terra firma, she knew that Uncle Jabez was struggling back to consciousness. The boy lowered the miller easily to the ground.

"He's coming 'round, Missy," he said. His smile was broad, and the little gold rings twinkled in his ears.

Ruth, wet and bedrabbled as she was, did not think of her own discomfort. She knelt beside Uncle Jabez and spoke to him. For some seconds he was so dazed that he did not seem to recognize her. Then he stammered:

"Ha—ha——I knowed we couldn't do it. No—no gal kin do a man's work. Ha!"

This seemed rather hard on Ruth, after she had done her best, and it had not been her fault that the boat was wrecked, but she was too excited just then to trouble about the miller's grumbling.

"Oh, Uncle! you're not badly hurt, are you?"

"Ha—hum! I dunno," stuttered the miller, and sat up. He rubbed his forehead and brought his hand, with a little blood upon it, back to the level of his eyes. "I vum!" he ejaculated, with more interest than before. "I must ha' cracked my head some. Why was it I didn't drown?"

"This little missy, here," said the black-eyed youth, quickly. "She saved you, Mister. She held your head above water till I come."

"Why—why——Niece Ruth! you did that?"

"Oh, it was nothing, Uncle Jabez! I am so glad you are not hurt worse. This boy really saved you. He brought you ashore."

"Who be ye, young man?" asked the miller. "I'm obleeged to ye—if what my niece says is true."

"Oh, I am named Roberto. You need not to thank—no!" exclaimed the stranger, suddenly getting up and looking all about.

"But it was very brave of him," declared Ruth, and she seized the boy's hand. "I—I am so glad you were near."

"Here's Tim and