I cannot tell how I did it; how I passed over the uneven ground or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning father made afterwards. I only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole, breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I slipped and dropped down places from which I should at other times have shrunk, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on for his life, the clamour of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my heart's beating with fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the afternoon sunshine, father's stool-car even then at the door ready to take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I knew; and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the porch, and climbed into the car. Father was not slow either; he snatched a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time, but so much may happen in a little time. We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even father, as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he uttered when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and we all looked. The ledge was empty. Mr. Herapath was gone. I suppose I was tired out. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed way, and cry without much feeling that it was my doing; while the men shouted to one another in strange hushed voices and searched about for any sign of his fate--"James Herapath!" So he had written his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house, and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, to hear him say "Bab" once more! "Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?" Safe and sound! Yes, when I turned he was there, safe, and strong, and cool, rod in hand, and a smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab" exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me answering a word until all the others came around us, and a babel of Norse and English, and something that was neither yet both, set in. "But how is this?" my father objected, when he could be heard, "you are quite dry, my boy?" "Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?" "The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" father asked, bewildered by the new aspect of the case. "It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."