Buck held on till he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him.

Thornton saw him coming, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with the whole force of the current behind him, he reached up and closed with both arms around the shaggy neck.

Hans snubbed the rope around the tree, and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water.

Strangling, suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to the bank.
Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled back and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete.

His first glance was for Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes.