"He cannot use one," laughed Ralph. "That is not the way to swing it. He takes it over and over like the sails of a windmill, describing circles with every stroke." "Well," asked Warren, "how would you use it? I confess that is the way I should handle it." "It is not the right way. It should be swung from side to side, and he will be over if he tries to play tricks like that"--as Elgert made a fancy stroke which brought the boat down on one side.--"There, he has dropped his paddle! Be careful"--and he raised his voice--"Be careful! He is over!" Yes; the warning came too late. Elgert reached over to regain his paddle, the canoe took one sudden lurch, turned bottom up, and sent the boy struggling into the water. Elgert could not swim--Ralph saw that at a glance; and, without waiting, off went coat and waistcoat, and into the river Ralph Rexworth went after his foe--the river that ran so swiftly on to the boiling, roaring weir. [Illustration: "INTO THE RIVER RALPH REXWORTH WENT AFTER HIS FOE." p. 138] It was a hard fight, but Ralph had the advantage of being carried by the current right down to the struggling boy, and, ere long, he had reached him, was gripping his arm, and had commenced the struggle back to the bank, only to find that Warren was by his side ready to give his help. And between them they managed to get Elgert back to the shore. Not without a big battle, for the water pulled like giant hands, seeking to sweep them all away. They had to swim in a slanting course, and even then, ere the bank was reached, they were perilously near to the spot over which the water took its leap, and where the notice-board with the big "Danger" was so prominently fixed. But they managed it; and Elgert was hurried off by his friends, while Warren and Ralph, soaked as they were, had to race back to Mr. St. Clive's, with Irene behind them urging them not to stop for her, but to get back as quickly as ever they could. Only to think of it! Ralph Rexworth had actually rescued, with the help of Warren, his enemy Horace Elgert from almost certain death! CHAPTER XV THE LOST POCKET-BOOK Ralph Rexworth was inconsolable--he had lost his pocket-book. Now, a lost pocket-book may not seem a very big thing to grieve over, seeing that another one can be bought for a reasonable sum; and yet Ralph did grieve, and grieve greatly. For this pocket-book was not like other pocket-books that might be bought. It was one which his father had given to him--the very last present which he had ever received from him--and it contained, amongst other things, and the greatest treasure of them all, a portrait of his darling mother, and the letter which his father had written to him on the day he made the present. What wonder, then, that a boy who loved his parents as Ralph Rexworth had done should grieve, and grieve greatly, over such a loss?