And the

see sights that he never saw before." very next day, when Lem, Otis, and George were sitting on the ramparts of the old fort, waiting to see the steamboat come up the harbor, Lem was the first to begin the story with, "When we were on the Island."

CHAPTER XV

HIS SHIPWRECK

THAT winter wore away without any incident more thrilling than Lem's being nearly drowned by the breaking of the ice in the Mill Pond, off the Neck, one day while skating on that treacherous sheet of ice-covered water. This time, the miller was not at hand to run a ladder out to the drowning boy, as he had once done for another. But the same boy, Otis Stevens, who was thus saved from death, was there to help his cousin.

The ice was not very thick, and, as the water had been partly drawn off at the dam, the icy sheet sagged down in the middle of the pond in a dangerous way. Some of the older boys had warned the younger ones that they had better keep away from the middle, and content themselves with skirmishing around the edges of the pond. But Lem, who was a daring and impulsive youngster, soon forgot the warning, and as he saw some of those same older boys scoot across the cracking ice in the centre of the pond, he grew bolder and bolder, and did his best to vie with his elders. There was a fearful joy in the rapid skimming

across the sagging ice, and hearing the crack, crack, crack, of the glassy floor beneath one's skates. Twice Lem snatched that joy as he skimmed over the dangerous place, and when he attempted to do it a third time, he was astonished by a sudden sinking of the sheet, and a huge, ragged-edged hole, nearly six feet across, was made in the ice, with Lem's head barely in sight in the middle of that hole. Fortunately, the outlet at the dam had been closed, and there was no current in the pond. Manfully striking out as well as he could, though loaded with thick clothes and his skates, Lem got at the edge of the ice nearest to land; but the brittle ice gave away in his grip, and he went down all over. A cry of horror rose from the lads on the ice, and some of the smaller ones began to weep aloud. was a prime favorite, and Lem was drowning! "Don't hold on the edge too tight, Lem!" cried Otis. "We'll be with you in a jiffy!"

Lem

Lem held the crumbling ice as lightly as he could in his grasp, and did not attempt to raise himself by his hands. But the water was freezing his legs, and he was afraid that he could not hold on very long; his fingers were as numb as they were on that day when he and his two chums had been digging clams on the Back Cove shore. Nevertheless, he wondered what Otis was going to do next for him. That heroic youngster, tearing from his own neck his long and stout woollen

comforter, or tippet, as some called it, cried, "Give us the human chain!"

Everybody had heard of the human chain, but none of those boys had ever tried it. Taking hold of Otis's left hand with his right hand was George Howe; next came Billy Hetherington with his right hand locked in George's left; then came Ned Martin and Sam Black and George Bridges and Ned Williams, all in the order named, each holding the other by the hand with a grip of iron. Nearest the bank stood two of the larger boys, John Hale and James Pat Adams, who were perhaps too heavy to venture out on the broken ice, and were useful for anchorage on the shore. Slowly, very slowly, as Lem thought, the human chain was unwound, and Otis ventured far out on the perilous edge of the ice. When he was within throwing distance of Lem, shivering there, pale

faced, and growing blue with cold, Otis cunningly swept the tippet along the glare ice with one swing, and it lay close to Lem's hands.

"Grab it! Grab it, Lemmie!" cried Otis, unconsciously using the pet name which Lem now heard so seldom. Lem loosened his hand from the ice, leaving his mitten frozen to the edge where he had held on; then the other hand was slipped from its mitten, and Otis, without a tremble in his voice, although his heart was all a-tremble, shouted, "Pull carefully, fellows! Carefully!"

The two big boys on the bank pulled with great

care, and very slowly, at the word. Lem, desperately winding the tippet around his wrists, held on "like grim death," as Otis afterward said, and slowly, very slowly, he was dragged out on the ice; it broke again beneath him, but the human chain kept on moving up to the bank, every boy holding on to the next boy for dear life, and sliding backward to the shore as quickly as was safe. Quicker than this could be told, Lem was hauled out upon the solid ice, and without giving him a chance to see if he could stand on his legs, his mates soon had him safe and sound far up by the shore of the pond. Then, with a queer tremor in his voice, Otis shouted, "Three cheers for the human chain!"

Three cheers were given with a will.

Luckily for Lem the miller was in his mill. He heard the cheers, and looking out to see what "the pesky boys were up to now," he saw two of them leading a wet and half-drowned lad across the ice toward the mill. Realizing at once what had happened, the miller crammed more wood into his cylinder stove, and when the procession of boys filed into the little mill, with the shaking and pallid Lem in their midst, there was a roaring fire to welcome them.

"Gosh all hemlock!" cried the miller; "ef this ain't Master Parker's Lem!"

"Master Parker's Lem it is, Mr. Snow," replied Otis, for Lem's teeth chattered too much for him