hesitated not a moment therefore, but stripping off his coat plunged in after his little friend. He knew that neither of his playmates could swim, and so Georgie must inevitably be drowned unless he could save him.

He struck out boldly after the drowning boy, and was not long in finding him, but the difficulty was how to hold him up after he was found.

Georgie grasped him by the leg with a deathlike grip, and the two went down together, but in a moment came to the surface again. A thought now suggested itself to Charlie Spence, who stood in an agony on the shore. If Donald only had a board, it would bear them both up. He acted on this idea at once. A board-fence, or paling as it is called in Scotland, ran right across the meadow at this place. He seized a large stone near, and, by two or three rapid and desperate blows, detached one of the boards and threw it into the river just as near as he could to the place where the boys had disappeared, for they had gone down again. As it touched the water, they once more came to the surface, and, strange to say, within a very few feet of the board. Donald made one desperate stroke with his hands, and his arm was over it.

He raised his drowning companion, but, alas, consciousness was gone, and Georgie could do nothing to help himself. Still, by the aid of this board, Donald could easily support him.

A new danger, however, now presented itself; the current was both rapid and strong, and tended directly to the race-way of the old mill, a little way below. Once in that race-way, all hope would be at an end, for they would be carried directly over the great water-wheel and dashed to pieces.

He strove, therefore, with all his might to reach the shore; but, with the dead weight of Georgie depending, he made little progress. Still he was evidently nearer the shore than he was when he caught the board.

Charlie watched with breathless anxiety this conflict with the waters, chafing at his own helplessness in the case, and longing to throw himself in. No person was near at hand, for the mill was on the other side of the stream, and the village was nearly half-a-mile off. He dared not leave his drowning friends, lest he might miss some opportunity of helping them.

Just when he was indulging the hope of their safety, they drifted to a spot where the current

grew much stronger, and they were carried with frightful swiftness directly to the race-way. Oh, the agony of that moment to Charlie !-his companions going so swiftly and surely to an awful death, and he powerless to save them.

Donald, too, saw the danger. They were within a few yards of the race-way which, like a giant's mouth, was open to devour them. Going at the rate they then were, in another moment they would be beyond human aid. His selfpossession now came to his help. If he could only turn the board so that it would dash sideways against the mouth of the race-way, all might yet be well; but if the end should enter, they must follow,-follow to certain death. It is true, he could drop his young friend, and yet save himself by a few bold strokes; but this he never for a moment so much as thought of.

It was an awful moment. He made the attempt, difficult though it was, and got the board turned just in time for it to catch the two sides of the race-way. It bent fearfully from the pressure of the water, but it did not break.

Charlie Spence had been calling lustily for help; but the mill was across the stream, and the noise of the machinery so great that his cries were drowned.