Chapter XVII: What Came of Shooting the Chute

Miss Elting had begun to unwind herself the instant her attention had been called to Grace Thompson's perilous position at the head of the chute. Hazel Holland also had rolled over to free herself of the blankets. But before either of them had succeeded in getting to her feet, Tommy had taken the long dive, followed, as the reader already knows, by Margery, and later by Harriet Burrell and Jane McCarthy.

"They'll be killed! Oh, those girls!" wailed the guardian. "Go after them, Janus."

"They are quite likely to be," observed the guide huskily. "I can go after them, but I can't stop them. There they are."

They heard the splash--in fact, several distinct splashes--faint, it is true, but sufficient to tell those in the camp that the girls had reached their destination, the pond at the foot of the Slide. Janus already was racing down the mountain, jumping, stumbling, falling now and then, but making his way down as rapidly as possible.

"Remain here, Hazel," commanded Miss Elting. Then she, too, hurried down, making even better time than did the guide, for the guardian was more agile and much lighter on her feet.

Fortunately for Tommy, she had been headed straight along the center of the Slide from the beginning. The chute sloped somewhat toward the middle. Tommy had instinctively kept her head up, arms thrust straight ahead of her. She began gasping for breath, and, either obeying Harriet's direction or the instinct of the swimmer, she closed her lips tightly and held her breath. Her little body flashed through a thick growth of bushes that hung over the chute at one point. She had seen the bushes coming at her like a projectile and instinctively lowered her head before reaching them. But she quickly raised her head again, uttering an exclamation, as the skin was neatly peeled from the bridge of her nose.

"Oh, thave me!" groaned Tommy, as the pond rose up to meet her. She caught and held her breath. When she struck the water a sheet of it rose up on each side of her just as the water does at the launching of a steamship, only there was much less displacement in Tommy's case. To her amazement she skimmed along the surface a few feet before she began to settle. Unfortunately, at about that time Tommy opened her mouth for a breath of fresh air. Instead she got a mouthful of water. She began to kick and struggle.

Down went Tommy, still struggling and kicking and striking out blindly, for the girl had not yet recovered from the shock. It was while she was down that another girlish figure shot straight into the lake. Instead of skimming the surface this second figure came down on her back with a mighty splash, turned a half-somersault, landing on her feet, where she stood treading water and screaming.

Now a third figure shot down the chute. It took the water in a clean dive, going clear under, passing close by where Margery was treading water and screaming for help. When Harriet finally did come up, shaking the water from eyes and head, she was seen to be only a few feet from Grace, who now was making a great splashing on her way to the opposite shore. Tommy could not speak as yet, but she could swim, and swim she did.

Observing that Tommy was not in immediate need of assistance, Harriet turned back toward Margery, who plainly was expending her strength without accomplishing very much. Harriet was just in time to see Jane McCarthy sit down in the pond. She made a great disturbance, added to which was a wild yell as she felt the water rising about her. Jane went into the water over her head. Margery, seized by a panic, forgot to tread water and went clear to the bottom.

Harriet, still gasping for breath from her long slide and the dive under water following, plunged ahead and dived again. She came up with the struggling, choking Buster firmly gripped in one hand. Margery was trying to grasp Harriet, and the latter was experiencing some difficulty in keeping out of her clutches. Tommy, in the meantime, had reached the other side of the pond and crawled up on the shore, where she lay complaining to herself, watching the struggle in the water with wide-open eyes. Now and then she shouted a suggestion.

"Oh, my stars!" cried Jane. Coming up, she splashed about in the pond trying to get her bearings. Then, seeing Harriet's struggle with Margery, Jane headed for them in a series of porpoise-like lunges. The last reach brought a hand in contact with one of Margery's feet. Jane gave it a mighty tug. "Put her under, put her under! That'll stop her!" shouted Jane.

"Let go, Jane," called Harriet. "She is all right now. She has her bearings now. Let us see if she has forgotten how to swim." Harriet threw Margery off. The latter splashed and floundered in the cold water, then all at once struck off for the shore. She reached it and scrambled to the bank, up which she staggered and sank whimpering to the earth.

Jane and Harriet swam shoreward. Jane was laughing almost hysterically. Though she felt chilled and exhausted, Harriet's eyes twinkled. The two struggled to the bank, there to sit down laughing.

"Are you safe?" shouted Miss Elting.

"Hoo-e-e-e!" answered the two girls.

"Are you all right, Tommy?" Harriet next called across the pond.

"Yeth, but I'm _almotht_ wet and cold. My clothes are thoaked, and there are ithicleth hanging from my eyebrowth. Thomebody better thave me?"

"Come over here," proposed Harriet, teasingly, "and we will."

"I can't," Tommy replied, with a shake of her head. "Too many thraight, high rockth in the way."

"Swim across, darlin'," urged Jane.

"Can't do that either, the water ith too cold."

"Then you'll have to stay where you are," laughed Jane. "If you get hungry, come over and I'll give you a biscuit to take back there with you."

"Girls, I feel so relieved," cried Miss Elting, running down to join them. "But why did you do such a foolish thing?"

"We came after Tommy," replied Miss McCarthy. "If that were foolish, we apologize."

"Tommy," ordered Miss Elting, "come here!"

"I can't," complained the little one.

"We'll have to go after her," sighed Harriet, "or the little goose will stay there. Miss Elting, how would you like to take a nice, cool morning swim?"

"No, thank you," replied the guardian, with a little shiver. "Here is Janus. You see that my girls are all valiant, Mr. Grubb."

There was a note of pride in the guardian's voice.

"Well, I swum!" was the guide's greeting. "Ye did do it!"

"Yes, sir; and I shouldn't mind doing it again. Oh, it was such sport, Miss Elting. Please, may we go up and have another slide?" begged Harriet.

"Oh, goodness, yes. Please let us," urged Jane.

"By no means. I am amazed that you should ask such a thing. I forbid it. Please get Tommy, if you are going to. She will stay there as long as we will wait here. I really don't know what I am going to do with Tommy."

"I wish you would do something, Miss Elting. She surely will be the death of me. Think of me, with my weak heart, having to submit to such terribly exciting adventures," complained Margery.

"Just listen to Buster," chuckled Crazy Jane. "We must be so very careful of her."

"Well, I suppose we might as well get in if we are going to," decided Harriet. "We can't be any wetter than we are, Jane."

"But we can be colder. All right. I'm with you."

Harriet dived in to get the shock over, coming up blowing. A splash followed hers and Jane came up beside her, shaking the water from her head and ears.

"My, but it's cold, isn't it, darlin'," she gasped.

"Cold as a snowbank," answered Harriet.

"I'll race you to the other side."

"Go you! Now!"

How the water did fly as they struck out in overhand strokes, shouting and laughing, cheered on by Miss Elting and Margery, on the other side by the irrepressible Tommy, who was dancing up and down on the shore, shouting and clapping her hands in great glee! The swimmers landed, laughing merrily as they made for shore. But they did not wait to argue with Tommy. Instead they picked her up bodily and tossed her into the pond. Tommy screamed and tried to fight, but she had little opportunity for resistance before she went in with a splash.

They sprang in after her, pulling the girl down, she having got to her feet in the meantime.

"Swim! swim, or we will hold your head under!" threatened Jane.

Tommy refused to swim.

"Grab her foot. We'll tow her," commanded Harriet. Suiting the action to the word, she grasped one of Tommy's ankles, and throwing herself on her back began to swim with feet and free arm for the opposite side of the pond.

"Hooray!" cried Jane, making a couple of leaps forward, and getting a firm hold of the other ankle of the now loudly screaming Tommy. "Toot, toot! The tug is going ahead. How do you like being towed, darlin'?"

Tommy's yells indicated that she did not fancy it, especially being towed feet first. Her head went under water almost instantly. Tommy was obliged to help herself or drown. She began working her arms, trying to keep her head above water, but found it awkward swimming that way. She never had tried the feet first style of swimming. No one of the party ever had, except Harriet, who could make very good progress that way.

"Hold your breath, dear," suggested Harriet sweetly. "You will not swallow so much water that way."

"How--how long must I hold it?"

"Not more than five minutes," comforted Crazy Jane.

"Thave----" She did not complete the sentence, because a volume of water rolled into her open mouth.

They had nearly reached the middle of the pond, when Harriet stopped swimming.

"I am afraid we shall have to turn her around. Tommy will persist in opening her mouth. We mustn't drown her," said Harriet.

Jane righted their tow with a jerk.

"Those girls, those girls!" muttered Miss Elting, turning a laughing face to Janus Grubb.

"Well, I swum!" he answered, nodding. "Never saw such a bunch of girls. Are they always like they have been this time?"

"Always," chuckled the guardian. "Usually more so."

"Well, I swum!"

"Will you swim, or will you drown?" demanded Jane of Tommy.

"I'll thwim, I'll thwim," answered Tommy chokingly. "I think you are horrid to treat me tho. I'll be even with you."

Jane started for her. Tommy got into instant action, and how she did swim! Harriet and Jane were much faster swimmers than was Tommy, but they pretended to have difficulty in keeping up with her and lagged behind until their shoulders were even with the kicking feet of the little, lisping girl. Then they began grabbing at her ankles, drawing fresh shouts and protests from Tommy. They teased her all the way to the shore, up which Tommy staggered and ran to Miss Elting for protection.

"Don't make me all wet," objected the guardian, leaping back out of the way.

Tommy sat down and whimpered. Jane and Harriet picked her up, placing her on a seat made of their four hands, and started up the mountainside with their burden.

"We aren't afraid of getting wet, are we, Jane?" laughed Harriet.

"Not this morning, we are not, darlin'," chuckled Jane. But they did not carry Tommy far. She decided that she would walk, fearing they were planning some trick on her. She had no desire to be dumped off on a steep place as Hazel had been. The girls clambered up the mountainside laughing over their mishaps of the morning, and ran bounding into camp far ahead of Miss Elting and the guide. They found Hazel very much excited over something that had occurred in the camp during their absence.