"Clausen! Can you hear?
Brace up! Strike out with your right hand, and don't grab me! Do you hear ?" But there was no answer.

Clausen was like stone in the water.

Joel cast a despairing glance toward the bluff.

Then his eyes brightened, for there sliding down the bank he saw a crowd of boys, and as he looked another on the bluff threw down a coil of new rope that shone in the afternoon sunlight as it fell and was seized by some one in the throng below.
Nerved afresh, Joel took a firm grasp on Clausen's elbow and struck out manfully for shore.

It was hard going, and when a bare dozen long strokes had been made his burden so dragged him down that he was obliged to stop, and, floundering desperately to keep the white face above water, take a fresh store of breath into his aching lungs.