Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies

f, shaking and rocking, was likely to be torn free by the battling current. If it should swing into deep water, it must sink almost at once, for the water was pouring in through the hole that had been battered in its side.

The flour was fast becoming saturated with the river-water, and its increased weight would bear the boat to the bottom, if it slipped from the reef.

Unable to see any good of boarding the boat again, Ruth tried to work her way along the reef until she stood upon a higher part of it. Uncle Jabez was unconscious, blood flowed from a deep cut on his head, and he lay a dead weight in her arms.

Never had Ruth Fielding been in greater peril. She was frightened, but mostly for the old man who seemed so seriously hurt.

Tossing her loosened hair out of her eyes, she stared longingly at the landing near Lakeby's store. It was some distance up-stream, and not a person was in sight. She feared, too, that it was too far away for her voice to carry.

Yet she must scream