CHAPTER XIII
THE BIG MINUTE
When Scouts Chase and Estey reached that frosty bank a confused scenemet their eyes.
Before the tumble-down sheds some wildly terrified small boys werestumbling to and fro on the pale brink of the ice, floundering likeriver seals in their attempts to walk upon the skates which they weretoo distracted to remove, and shrieking at intervals:--
"He's drown-dr-rowning! Oh! he's _drowning_. Jack Barry's drowning inthe river!"
"Who's drowning? What's the matter, Marcoo? Has anybody gone through theice?" questioned Leon sharply of the one older boy upon the bank, whoturned upon him over a heaving shoulder the pleasant, ruddy face,empurpled by shock, of Coombsie.
"Yes, the ice gave way out there." Marcoo pointed to a wide hole thirtyyards from the bank, where the dark, imprisoned water bubbled like awhirlpool. "Little Jack Barry has fallen through. Ice rotten there!Couldn't reach him without a rope! Nix gone for it!" Coombsie flung thewords from him like broken twigs. "Here he comes now!"
Bareheaded, breathless, the patrol leader of the Owls tore toward thebank, in his hand a coil of rope. Behind him ran two distracted womenfrom a near-by house; the drowning boy's mother and hisgrandmother--whose one unshattered idol he was--old Ma'am Baldwin.
She looked more like a ragged cornstalk than ever, that little oldwoman, thought Leon--in the way that trivial reflections have of beingwhirled to the surface upon the tempest of a moment like this--with allher odds and ends of shawls streaming on the icy breeze that skatedmockingly to meet her. With her long wisps of gray hair outstreamingtoo!
And as she came she raised her right arm to her breast with thatpathetic gesture familiar to Starrie Chase, as though to shield herhalf-broken old heart from the last blow that Fate might deal to it: asif she would defend the image it held of the drowning child, andtherewith little Jack himself, from the robber Death.
Starrie's brown eyes took one rapid snapshot of the old woman in herquaking anguish, and his mind passed two resolutions: that the BigMinute had come: and that there wasn't water or ice enough in the tidalriver to keep him from saving Ma'am Baldwin's grandson.
"Tie this rope round me! _Quick!_ Bowline knot! I'll try an' crawl outto him!" Nixon was shrieking in his ear.
"You can't alone! The ice is too rotten. You'd break through--and wemightn't be able to pull you out that way. Must make a chain! I'll gofirst. Crawl after me, Nix, and hang on tight to my feet!"
Corporal Chase was already lying flat on his stomach, working himselfout over the infirm ice where, here and there, within the white map oflines and circles traced by the skates of the small boys, were smallholes through which the captive water heaved like Ma'am Baldwin'sbreast, under a thin, glassy fretwork.
After him crawled Nixon, grasping his ankles in a strong grip. And,performing a like service for the patrol leader, came Coombsie, andafter Coombsie Colin; the four forming a human chain, trusting theirlives to the unstable, saline ice, and to the grip of each other.
"Hold on tight, Nix! I see his head. We'll land him--yet!" Leon flungthe last challenge between his set teeth at the white, porous ice andthe little dark wells of bubbling water.
Worming his body in and out between those fretting holes, he reached theglassy skirts of the larger fissure which imprisoned little Jack. Therethe nine-year-old victim's hands clutched frantically at the jaggededges of the encircling ice, while his screams for help grew weaker. ToJack himself they seemed not to rise above the cold, pale ring thathemmed him in.
"_Hold--tight!_" The clenched word was passed along the chain as Leon atits head, hearing the tidal current beneath him sobbing, straining to befree, flung his hands out and grasped the victim's collar and shoulder,trying to lift him out of the hole.
But with a groan the brittle ice surrounding it gave way: the foremostrescuer's body was plunged too into the freezing, brackish water.
"We'll both go now--Jack an' I--unless Nix hangs on to me like abulldog!" was the thought that stabbed him as an ice-spear while thedark tidal current, shot with glints of light like cruel eyes, engulfedhis shoulders.
But Nixon held on to his ankles, like grim death fighting grim Deathhimself. Not a link in that human chain parted, though the ice crackedominously beneath it!
And Leon, half submerged, battling for breath, clung steadfastly toJack, as if indeed there was not water enough in the seven miles oftidal river to sunder them.
Presently, while his comrades backed cautiously, dragging upon the lowerpart of his body, his head and arms reappeared, the latter claspingMa'am Baldwin's grandson.
A sob, half hysterical, burst from the gathering spectators on the bank.
"If--if the Lord hadn't been with him, he couldn't have hung on to himthat time!" muttered Captain Andy, the old life-saver, who had limped tothe scene.
And, indeed, it did seem as if the Lord was with Leon Chase and made hisstrength in this desperate minute--like that of one of the famousknights of the Round Table--as the strength of ten because his heart waspure!--Purified of all but the desire to help and save!
"Starrie's got him! Starrie's holding on to him!" came in an exultantcry from a group of boys rigid upon the river-brink; in their midstgleamed the face, pale and fixed as the ice itself, of Godey Peck; andfrom Godey's eyes streamed the first ray of ardent hero-worship thoserather dull eyes had ever known--leveled at the Tin Scouts.
"Keep cool, boys! Take it easy an' you'll land him now!" shouted CaptainAndy.
Afraid, for their sakes, to burden farther the ice with his massivebody, he, too, stretched himself, breast downward, on the more solidcrust near the bank, and seizing Colin's ankles directly they camewithin reach added another link to that human chain by means of whichJack's half-conscious body was finally drawn ashore and placed in hismother's arms.
"You saved him, Leon. I'll thank you as well--as well as I can--Leon!"quavered the grandmother's broken voice.
"Aw! that's all right," came in an embarrassed shiver from between thechattering teeth of the foremost rescuer, from whom the water ran inrivulets that would freeze in another minute.
"I'll forward the names of you four boys to National Headquarters, toreceive the scout medal for life-saving!" proudly cried ScoutmasterEstey, who at this minute appeared upon the river-bank, while he pluckedJack's numbed body from his mother's shaking arms and set off at a runwith it toward the nearest house.
Leon was hustled in the same direction by an admiring crowd.
But whence came that shrill challenge waking the echoes of the ChristmasEve? Did Godey's lips utter the cry: "What's the matter with the BoyScouts? They're all right!"
And a score of throats gave back the answer:--
"Three cheers for the Boy Scouts of America! Three cheers--an' atiger--for the Owl Patrol."
"Say, Mister!" Half an hour later, as Scoutmaster Estey issued from thecottage where, with the help of Kenjo Red and another scout, he had beenturning his first-aid knowledge to account in the resuscitation oflittle Jack, he heard himself thus addressed and felt a hand pluck athis sleeve. Looking down, in the twilight, he saw Godey Peck.
"Say! it hasn't made 'softies' of 'em, this scout business," declaredGodey oracularly. "I want to be a scout too. Us boys all want to comein!" He glanced behind him at his gang who had constituted him theirspokesman.
"Really? Do you _all_ want to enlist in the Boy Scouts of America?"
"Sure! We want to come in now at the rate of sixty miles an hour, youbet!" Godey chuckled.
"Oh! well, if you're in such a hurry as that, come round to my houseto-night; we're going to have a Christmas celebration there." And thetall scoutmaster walked off, laughing.
Thus on Christmas Eve did Godey drop off the fence on the side of theboy scouts, whose code of chivalry is only an elaboration of the firstChristmas message: "Peace on earth, good will to men!"