Chapter XXXV

_In Which Billy Topsail Takes His Life in His Hands and Ha-Ha
Shallow Lays Hold of It With the Object of Snatching It Away_

"Well," said Archie, "I'll try it."

"You won't!" said Billy.

"I will!"

"You won't!"

Archie looked Billy in the eye.

"Why not?" he inquired.

"I'm goin' t' try it myself."

"You're not!"

"I am!"

Both boys burst into a laugh. It was an amiable thing to do. And there could have been no better preparation for the work in hand.

"Look here, Billy----" Archie began.

"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.