The girls were clapping their hands, and almost wishing that fortune had been kind enough to let them figure in the rôle of a heroine; though the water did look pretty wet, and it was evidently very deep right at this point in the Harrapin. “We must get them in, fellows!” called Ben, as he gave the signal for the boy at the engine to back the boat down the current. “Oh! be careful, Ben, and don’t run over them!” begged Helen, as a new fear began to tug at her heart. “I’ll look out,” came the confident reply, as the boat started slowly to follow the current, and gain on the struggling couple. But Lanky was not worrying a bit. He had his arm tight around the waist of Dora, and was easily keeping himself afloat, for he was a good swimmer--almost like a duck in the water, his mates used to say. “Are you all right, Dora?” he asked, wondering whether she had retained her senses through it all. She clung all the tighter to him, as though that alone ought to answer his question. Perhaps, after it was all over, Dora would treat him just as coldly as ever; but while it lasted Lanky was not “caring whether school kept or not,” as he described it. They were soon enabled to reach the side of the boat; and as some of the boys above reached down their hands, Dora’s dripping figure was quickly drawn up. But it might have been noticed that the girl studiously avoided touching the hand of Walter Ackerman. He was bound to pay a heavy penalty for never having learned to swim. “His cake is dough, all right!” was the way Paul Bird expressed it to Helen, after he had seen this aversion on the part of the rescued girl. “And I guess there’s just going to be all peace between Lanky and Dora after this.” “It’s just wonderful, that’s all I can say!” exclaimed Frank’s young sister. “If it had been a page out of a story it couldn’t have happened nicer. But they’re helping Lanky up now. Oh! isn’t he just dripping, though?” “But he rather likes it,” Paul went on to say. “Lanky always was a sort of water-dog. I’ve known him to spend the best part of a day in the river. You couldn’t drown him if you tried. See him grin, will you, when he looks at poor Walter, who’s got to take a back seat after this, I reckon.” “Well, serves him right!” declared Helen. “Every boy ought to know how to swim, if he ever expects a girl to feel confidence in him at all. And I’m so glad that _you_ can, Paul.” Lanky Wallace no longer looked glum and unhappy. He realized that fortune had beamed upon him that day in a way he could never have dreamed would happen. It was not enough that he should come in far ahead of the field in that long run, beating the best amateur time known in that section of the country for a five-mile race; but now this had come about in the bargain.