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Show I In the S White Water X By AUSTIN FLEET y. Western Newspaper Union.) THE end was come. Andy went down under a hall of bJous from the fists of 'his opponent, lied Mulligan. Mulli-gan. It was tough un Andy. Everyone Every-one sympathized with the buy, but he had no right to challeiu.'e Ked, even if lied had said that about the girl. It wasn't us if Andy and Milly were regularly engaged to be married. lied swung a mighty fist and Andy took the count, lie was carried to his bunk. Ked turned away with u sneer. No one sympathized with Ked, the bully of the camp. "Xou shore put up a good fight, Andy," said his friend Jake Knowles. "Don't take it so hard, Andy." " 'Tain't that, it's what he said about him uud her. It's a lie. I'll tell him so again." "Shore It's a lie, Andy. All of us knows that. No need to tell him." But Andy brooded over It all that night. He knew Red had been lying, but the lie was poison in him. He knew Milly was as good as any girl on earth, and that when Red persecuted perse-cuted her she had threatened to go to the manager. That put an end to Ited, who, in his jealousy of Andy, spat out the words at him. , Of course it was a He, but somehow Andy felt that that lie had become a living, slimy, crawdlng tiling that had to be killed. Somehow he must make lied take back that lie. The gang was riding the logs next day, marshaling them Into the dam. The river was in spate, the boom had broken once that season, and if the flood continued there would be imminent immi-nent danger of a repetition of the catastrophe. catas-trophe. Every hour a fresh accumulation accumu-lation of Ice was jammed up against It. The logs must be started, taking advantage of the flood. The men skipped from log to log with their heavy caulked shoes. There was murder In Andy's heart as he watched Red moving about. One thrust of his peavy, and Red would be swept down to his death in those icy waters. Suddenly shouts were raised: "My God, she's going! Git ashore, boys! Git ashore!" Next instant, with a roar like a thunderclap, the" boom had parted. The wedged logs were on the verge of a breakup. The men ran for the shore. Andy saw Red In front of him stumble the next instant the bully had gone headlong into the ice-laden stream. He disappeared under the logs amid shouts of horror from the bank. Andy was the onl other man on the logs. He hesitated perhaps a -fraction of a second, then dived. Down into the icy water, roaring and boiling round the logs, down till he found Red, and grasped him by the hair. Red was no swimmer. He clutched at Andy convulsively, in the way a drowning man will, and Andy felt them both being swept along by the raging current. And then began a furious struggle for life. With one hand grasping Red, whose arms were round Andy In a stranglehold, drawing him down, Andy fought upward toward daylight. He reached it, drew in a chestful of air, and saw the raging; waves sweeping the logs, about as If they were straws, and the ice floes grinding and churning churn-ing up the river surface. One blow and he would go down with Red, to be swept down to the cataract below. Near htm he saw that part of the dam that had not broken a projection projec-tion of piles extending from the shore. He was nearlng it fast, but he would be swept through the opening over the cataract. And with a last effort he flung himself and Red toward It. He missed it ! Missed I But shouts attracted htm. Men on the bank were flinging a noosed rope. Just as he was being swept past the dam he managed man-aged to get one arm through. A struggle, strug-gle, a dozen men hauling on the bank against , the current and Red and Andy were In still water and being drawn ashore. And Andy fainted. He recovered to find himself in his blankets In the bunk house. And that form, sniffing at his side was that Red Mulligan? He turned away In weariness. He had remembered the He. He had forgotten for-gotten that he had nearly given his life for Red. "Andy," Red sniveled, "that thing I told you about Milly that was a lie. Reckon I was off my head with jealousy." jeal-ousy." Andy put out his hand, and he and Red clasped in the beginning of a lasting last-ing friendship. |