As has been stated the water at this part of the mill-pond was deeper than anywhere else. The instant Jim went off the land, he was where a twenty-foot pole would not have reached bottom. Furthermore, he told the truth when he called that he could not swim. He was unable to sustain himself for a single stroke.
Quick as was Dick Halliard in dashing over the brief intervening space, he saw the head of the fellow disappear under the surface, the disturbed waters bubbling over him.
But he knew he would come up again, and hurriedly looked around for a pole or stick to extend to him. None was within reach and the seconds were of too momentous value to allow him a further hunt.
Knowing the endangered youth was in a panic, Dick now strove to reach him without leaving the land. Remembering where he had gone down, he essayed to step as far out from the edge as he could, in the hope that he might give him his hand.
But, familiar as he was with the big mill-pond and its surroundings, he forgot that the shore at that place went downward as sheer as the side of a stone wall.
As a consequence, the instant he bore the least weight on the extended foot, down he went with a force that carried him below the surface.
But Dick was one of the most skillful of swimmers, and though the water was chilly, he came up like a duck.
He was so prompt in doing this that he and Jim rose simultaneously, and within arm's length of each other.
"Keep still! don't move, and I'll take you ashore!"
He might as well have appealed to the whirlwind. The instant he grasped the hair of the big fellow the latter turned and flung both arms about his neck, and despite all his rescuer could do the two disappeared again.
The young rescuer knew that unless the desperate lock was broken both must drown, and the coolness with which he decided on the right and only thing to do and did it, was one of the most striking exhibitions our hero ever gave, or, for that matter, that any one could have given.
While holding his breath below, the death-lock of the drowning youth was slightly relaxed, but not sufficiently for his hold to be released. Our body is slightly less in specific gravity than water, and, aided by the exertions of Dick, the two quickly rose to the surface again.