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.
"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.
Almost immediately an answering cry came down the wind:
"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.
"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.