with big pines and balsams

If he’s fallen in that creek, he’s a goner!” shouted the station agent　dermes　, rushing out of the depot. The falls are right below, and he’ll be swept into them!” CHAPTER III. IN PERIL OF HIS LIFE. Just how they clambered down that rocky, slippery track none of the party was ever able to recall in after life. But, burned deep on each boy’s mind for as long as he should live was the picture they saw as they came in full view of the swirling, madly dashing torrent. Above a foam-flecked eddy, beyond which the main current boiled and seethed, towered the black, spider-like outlines of the trestle. On the other shore was a rocky steep covered with big pines and balsams. Between the two, his white, frightened face showing above the current as he clung with might and main to a log, was Persimmons. This log, evidently the trunk of a tree which had fallen from its foothold beside the path on the depot[26] side of the torrent, reached out some twenty feet above the devil’s caldron of the stream. The roots and the main part of the trunk rested on the shore. That portion that projected over the water was nothing more than a slender pole. The freshets of spring had swept it clean of branch or limb. It was as bare as a flag-staff. Under it the green water rushed frantically on toward a fall that lay beyond the trestle. The voice of the cataract was plainly audible in their ears, although in the extremity of their fear for Persimmons they gave it no heed. It was almost at the end of this frail support that the boy was clinging. Only his head and shoulders were above the water, which dragged malignantly at him, trying to tear loose his hold. It was plain at once that flesh and blood could not stand the strain long. If they did not act to save him, and that quickly, Percy Simmons was doomed speedily to be swept from his hold and hurtled to[27] the falls and—but they did not dare dwell upon that thought　dermes . How the boy could have got where he was, was for the present a mystery. But there he was, almost at the end of the slender tree trunk, which whipped under the strain of his weight. Can you hold on?” shouted Ralph, using the first words that came into his head. They saw Persimmons’ lips move, but could not hear his reply　dermes 　. Don’t make him speak; he needs every ounce of breath he has,” said the professor, whose face was ashen white under his tan. The boys were hardly less pale. They looked about them despairingly. We must find a rope and get it out to him,” cried Harry Ware. But how? Nobody could maintain a foothold on that log,” declared Ralph. We might drift it down to him,” suggested the station agent; get on the bank further up[28] and allow the current to carry down a loop that he could grab.” That’s a good idea,” cried the professor, hailing any solution of their quandary with joy, have you got a rope?”