Billy Topsail, M.D.

"No," Billy insisted; "it won't do. You haves your way always, Archie. An' now I'm goin' t' have my turn at it. I'll try it first. An' if I gets across you can follow."

"You might stumble."

"I know that."

"Look here, Billy – "

"No, no, b'y! I'm goin' first. I won't make a fool o' myself. We got t' get across this stream if we can. An' we've got t' get on t' Poor Luck Barrens. But I won't make a fool o' myself, Archie. I promise you that. I'll go jus' as far as I can. I'll go with care – jus' as far as I can. An' if 'tis no use tryin' any more, I'll come back. That's a promise. I'll come back. An' then – "

"Ay, Billy?"

"I'll try somewhere else."

"Billy," said Archie, "I – I – I likes you!"

"Stop your jawin'!" said Billy.

Then Archie said:

"If you fall in the current I'll pull you out, Billy. You trust me."

Billy spoke gravely:

"You'll do no such thing."

"What!" cried Archie. "Not try to save – "

"No."

"Why, Billy," Archie protested, "you're just plain foolish to ask me not to – "

"No," said Billy, again; "it isn't foolish. I won't have it."

Archie said nothing.

"Now," said Billy, "I'll try my hand at it."

The gravity and untoward chances of the attempt were not ignored. Both boys were aware of them. A simple thing to splash into the first shallow inches of Rattle Water and there deliberate an advance – true enough; but Billy Topsail was in earnest about crossing. He would venture far and perilously before he turned back – venture to the brink of safety, and tentatively, definitely into the dragging grip of the deeper current beyond. A boy who proposes to go as far as he can is in the way of overreaching himself. Beyond his utmost, whatever his undertaking, lies a mocking, entreating temptation to his courage – an inch or two more.

"Billy!" said Archie.

"Ay?"

"Do you think that if you fall in the current I'll stand by and – "

"I hopes you will, Archie, If I loses my feet, I goes down-stream. That's plain. No man could catch his feet in that water. An' if I goes all the way down-stream, I goes clean under Black Pool ice. An' if I goes under Black Pool ice, I can't get out, because the current will hold me there. That's plain, too. You couldn't pull me out o' the stream. If you could do that, I could get out alone. You'd jus' go down with me. So you leave me go."

"Billy, I – "

"Oh, I isn't goin' t' fall anyhow, Archie. An' if I does, I'll make a fight. If I can grab anything on the way down; an' if I can hang in the stream, we'll talk it over again."

"Billy – "

"That's all, Archie."

With that Billy Topsail, the pack of food on his back (since if he won the other bank he must have sustenance for the chances of his journey to Poor Luck Barrens), waded into the water.

Presently Billy Topsail was ankle deep in the stream. The water foamed to his calves. Suspense aggravated him. He splashed on – impatient to come to the crisis that challenged him. It was a stony bed – loose, round, slippery stones; and a stone turned – and Billy Topsail tottered in the deeper suck of the current. It was nothing to regain his balance in that shallow. And he pushed on. But by and by – time being relative to suspense, it seemed a long, long time to Archie Armstrong, waiting on the snowy bank – by and by Billy Topsail was knee deep and anxiously engaged; and mid-stream, where the ripple was dancing down in white-capped, choppy waves, was still proportionately far distant.

Billy paused, then, to settle his feet. The footing was treacherous; the water was white to his thighs – the swift, dizzy, noisy passage was confusing. For a new advance he halted to make good his grip of the bottom and to brace and balance himself against the insistent push of the current.

Archie shouted:

"You're doing fine, Billy!"

In the bawling rush of the stream it was hard to hear Archie. Still, Billy heard. And he nodded – but did not dare to turn.

"Go slow," Archie called, "and you'll make it!"

Billy thought so too. He was doing well – it seemed a reasonable expectation. And he ventured his right foot forward and established it. It was slow, cautious work, thrusting through that advance, feeling over the bottom and finding a fixed foundation; and dragging the left foot forward, in resistance to the current, was as slow and as difficult. A second step, accomplished with effort; a third, achieved at greater risk; a fourth, with the hazard still more delicate – and Billy Topsail paused again.

It was deeper. The broken waves washed his thighs; the heavy body of the water was above his knees; he was wet to the waist with spray; and in the deeper water, by the law of displacement, he had lost weight. The water tended to lift him: the impulse was up to the surface – the pressure down-stream. In this respect the current was like a wrestler who lifts his opponent off his feet before he flings him down.

And in the meantime the current tightened its hold.

CHAPTER XXXVI

In Which Ha-Ha Shallow is Foiled, Archie Armstrong Displays Swift Cunning, of Which He is Well Aware, and Billy Topsail, Much to His Surprise, and not Greatly to His Distaste, is Kissed by a Lady of Poor Luck Barrens

Another advance of the right foot; an increased depth of two inches; a sudden, upward thrust of the water; a rolling stone: Billy Topsail tottered – struggled for balance, like a man on a tight-rope, and caught and held it; but in the wrenching effort his pack had shifted and disturbed his natural poise. He faced up-stream, feet spread, body bent, arms extended; and in this awkward posture, at a disadvantage, he swayed dangerously, incommoded by the pack, his legs quivering in the current.

Deliberately, then, Billy contorted himself until the pack slipped from his shoulder to its place on his back; and upright again, established once more, he dragged his left foot by inches against the current, set it above the right, forced it into place, and turned to face the opposite shore. He was fairly mid-stream, now. Another confident, successful step – a moment more of cool behaviour and intelligent procedure – and the grip of the current would begin to fail.

All this while the tumbling water had worked its inevitable effect. It was noisy; it ran swift; it troubled Billy Topsail – the speed and clatter of it. And he was now confused and dizzy. Now, too, he was conscious of the roar of the stream below. More clamorously, more vividly, it asserted itself – reiterated and magnified its suggestion of disaster. It could not be ignored. Billy Topsail abstracted his attention. It returned to the menace.

There it was – the roar of the stream below: the deep, narrow rush of it, swelling over the boulders, curling around them, plunging irresistibly towards the Black Pool ice, and vanishing into the stifling gloom beneath, in a swift, black, silent stream, flecked with creamy puffs of foam. A misstep, a false stone, a lost balance – a man would then drift fast and helpless, bruised by the bottom, flung against the boulders and stunned, smothered by the water, cast into Black Pool and left to sink in still water. It was the logical incident of failure.

Aware of the cumulative effect of fear, conscious of the first creeping paralysis of it, Billy Topsail instantly determined upon the next step. It must be taken – it must be taken at once. Already the weakness and confusion of terror was a crippling factor to be dealt with. He must act – venture. He moved in haste; there was a misstep, an incautious faith in the foothold, a blind chance taken – and the current caught him, lifted him, tugged at him, and he lost his feet, flung his arms in the air, toppled over, drifted off with the current, submerged, and was swept like driftwood into the deep rush below.

He rose, gasped, sank – came breathless to the surface; and self-possessed again, and fighting for life against hope, instinctively, but yet with determined intelligence, grasping breath when he could and desperately seeking handhold, foothold – fighting thus he was dragged a bruising course through the narrowing channel towards Black Pool and at last momentarily arrested his drift with a failing grip of a boulder.

Archie Armstrong ran down-stream. No expedient was in his horrified mind. The impulse was to plunge in and rescue Billy if he could. That was all. But the current was swifter than he; he was outstripped – stumbling along the rocky, icy shore. When he came abreast of Billy, who was still clinging to the rock in mid-stream, he did plunge in; but he came at once to a full stop, not gone a fathom into the current, and stood staring.

Billy Topsail could not catch the bottom in the lee of the rock. Even there the current was too strong, the depth of water too great, the lee too narrow, the rock too small for a wide, sufficient backwater. Black Pool was within twenty fathoms. Billy's clutch was breaking. In a moment he would be torn away. Yet there was a moment – a minute or more of opportunity. And having assured himself of this grace, Archie Armstrong splashed ashore, without a word or a sign, scaled the bank and ran down-stream to the bridge of Black Pool ice.

The bridge was rotten. It was rotten from bank to bank. It would not bear the weight of a man. Archie Armstrong knew it. Its fall was imminent. It awaited the last straw – a dash of rain, a squall of wind. The ice was thick; there was a foot of it. And the bridge was heavy; its attachment to the low cliffs was slight; in a day – next day, perhaps – it would fall of its own weight, lie inert in the pool, drift slowly away to the open reaches of Skeleton Arm and drive to sea.

Archie Armstrong, hanging by his hands from the edge of the low cliff, broke a great fragment from the rock and thus reduced the stability of the whole; and hanging from the edge of the same low cliff, a few fathoms below, grasping the roots of the spruce, he broke a second fragment loose with his weight – a third and a fourth. And the structure collapsed. It fell in thick, spacious fragments on the quiet water of the pool, buoyant and dry, and covered the face of the water, held imprisoned by the rocks of the narrow exit.