Silver Rags

by Willis Boyd Allen

“HELP! Help!” It was a girl’s voice, clear and sharp with distress. The cry echoed over Loon Pond, and rang through the woods which surrounded its dimpled waters. In a small, flat-bottomed boat, about fifty yards from the shore, crouched a young girl of perhaps sixteen years, her face blanched with terror as she gazed into the depths beneath and uttered again and again that piercing cry: “Help! O quick, quick! Help!” Something dark rose slowly to the surface of the pond, and a small...