Part 44 (1/2)

There was a sudden splash as his body struck the water.

Phil shot right down beneath it and the waters of the Mississippi closed over him.

He understood then what had happened, but not for an instant did he lose his presence of mind. Phil had caught his breath as his feet touched the water, and now that he had sunk beneath the surface he began to kick vigorously and work his hands to check his downward course.

A moment of this and he felt himself rising toward the surface.

Phil was as good a swimmer as he was a performer in the circus ring, and he felt no nervousness, even though his position at that moment was a perilous one.

Almost at once he felt his head above the surface of the river, but his eyes were so full of muddy water that he could see nothing at all. Instead of trying to swim, Phil lay over on his back, floated and began blinking industriously to get the water out of his eyes. He soon found that he could see once more, though at that moment there was nothing to be seen in the blackness of the night.

”There's the 'Marie,'” he cried. Phil raised his voice in a good l.u.s.ty howl for help, but none heard him. He could see the lights of the steamboat and they appeared to be far away.

”There is only one thing left for me to do, and that is to strike out for the sh.o.r.e. I wonder which way the sh.o.r.e is?”

Once more he raised himself in the water, for an instant, and gazed toward the rapidly disappearing lights of the 'Marie.'

”She is going downstream, so if I swim to the left I should reach sh.o.r.e after a while,” decided the lad.

He did not know that the boat had in the meantime made a sharp turn to her right and that in turning to the left he would be swimming downstream, making his attempt to reach sh.o.r.e a difficult one indeed.

The lad struck out manfully, swimming with long, easy strokes, aided considerably by the current which was sweeping him downstream much faster than he thought.

”I'm glad I have only my pajamas on,” decided the lad. ”If I had all my clothes on I fear I should have a pretty tough fight.

It's bad enough as it is.”

Talking to himself, in order to keep up his courage, he swam steadily on, now and then pausing to swim on his back to rest himself. He had gone on for nearly an hour when the lad began to wonder why he had not reached sh.o.r.e.

”Surely the river cannot be so wide at this point. I must have drifted downstream considerably. Perhaps I haven't been going in the right direction at all.”

He tried to find out which way the drift was, in order to make up his mind as to the direction in which the sh.o.r.e lay. In the darkness, however, he was unable to determine this, so he began swimming again, trusting to luck to land him on something solid, sooner or later. He knew that this must occur, but whether his strength would hold out that long he could not say.

All at once he caught a peculiar drumming sound. It reminded him of a partridge that he had once heard in the woods, but it seemed a long way off and he could not identify it.

”I guess it must be my heart, up somewhere near my mouth, that I hear,” said the boy with a short mindless laugh. ”Maybe I am going to pieces. If I am I deserve to drown.”

About that time Phil decided to turn over on his back and rest for a moment.

The instant he did so he uttered a sharp exclamation. His eyes caught sight of something that he had not seen before. It looked to him like some giant shadow, from which twinkled hundreds of lights.

”It is the 'Marie'!” cried the boy. ”They are coming back for me. No, no, it cannot be the 'Marie,' for this boat is coming from the opposite direction. Yes, it surely is a steamboat!”

Though Phil did not know it, this was one of the big river packets bound down the river from St. Louis.

”I must get out of the way, or they will run me down, but I want to keep close enough so I can hail them. I hope this is where I get on something solid again.”

A few minutes of steady swimming appeared to have taken him out of the path of the river boat. Then Phil rested, lying on his back, watching the boat narrowly.

”In almost any other position or place, I might think that was a pretty sight. As matters stand, now, it looks dangerous to me.”

His position was more perilous at that moment than he even dreamed.