He
raised his hand and drew it across his forehead and eyes.
The boat with the helpless woman was already past the front of the
house.
Betty Jo cried again as if calling the man she loved from a distance:
"Brian! Brian!"
With a sudden movement, the man jerked away from her. The next instant,
he had leaped over the railing of the porch to the ground below and was
running with all his might toward the river, at an angle which would put
him opposite or a little below the boat when he reached the bank.
With a sob, Betty Jo followed as fast as she could.
As Brian Kent raced toward the river's edge, the powerful current drew
the boat with the woman into the first rough water of the rapids, and,
as the skiff was shaken and tossed by the force that was sweeping it
with ever-increasing speed toward the wild turmoil at Elbow Rock, the
woman screamed again and again for help.
The warring forces of the stream whirled the little craft about, and
she saw the man who was nearing the bank. She rose to her feet in the
rocking boat, and stretched out her arms,--calling his name, "Brian!
Brian! Brian!" Then the impact of the boat against a larger wave of
the rapids brought her to her knees, and she clung to the thwarts with
piteous cries.
Betty Jo and the clubhouse men, who had overtaken her, saw Brian as
he reached the river opposite the boat.
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