The minute was three.

He had to lift the second girlish victim
almost bodily out of the water and drag
her with him as he wriggled and crawled
over the broken ice-pack, to reach a firm
spot, where he picked her up and--with
all the vigor of an athletic eighteen-year-old--carried
her to the shore, now not
more than twenty yards off.

"Humph! I was just in time, wasn't
I?" he ejaculated on the transit. "By
George! You've got pep, if ever a girl
had--I'll wager you pulled your friend
out of the parlor-car and held her up!
Some horripilation, eh?" breezily. "Now--now
what have you and I ever done
that the Fates should wish this on to us--that's
what I'd like to know?"

It was what the daring little ski-runner,
Pem, herself, had been vaguely wondering;
she liked this jolly wit-snapper who preferred
his excitement warm.

"Ha! there goes the engine exploding,"
he gasped a moment later, as he set her
[[37]]

p036 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p037w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p038

v?