Danger At The Drawbridge Part 32

"Then at least let me go back to Riverview," Jerry grumbled. "I don't want to be stuck in any hick town hospital."

"If you feel equal to the trip, I guess we can grant you that much. You seem to be all right, but I want to make sure. Can't take chances on the paper being sued later on, you know."

"Oh, I get the idea," said Jerry with a grimace. "Thinking of the old cash register, as usual."

Penny drew a deep sigh of relief. If Jerry were able to make jokes he couldn't be seriously injured. She still felt weak from the fright she had received.

"The police will find those men who attacked you," she told him. "I hope they're put in prison for life, too!"

"The police?" Jerry repeated. He stared up into Mr. Parker's face. "Say, Chief, you're not aiming to spill the story, are you?"

"I was."

"But see here, if you notify the police, we'll show our hand to the rival paper. If we keep this dark we could do our own investigating, and maybe land a big scoop."

"Justice is more important than a scoop, Jerry," returned Mr. Parker. "If those men had anything to do with Atherwald's disappearance, and it looks as if they did, then we are duty bound to hand our clues over to the police. By trying to handle it alone, we might let them escape."

"Guess maybe you're right at that," Jerry acknowledged.

As she saw that the reporter was rapidly recovering strength, Penny left him to the care of her father and went forward to speak with Harry Griffith.

"Where are we now?" she inquired.

"Just comin' to the Kippenberg estate," he told her.

"Only that far? We don't seem to be making very fast time."

"We're buckin' the current, Miss. And there's a right stiff wind blowing."

She had not noticed the wind before or how overcast the sky had become.

One could not see many yards in advance of the boat.

Ahead loomed the drawbridge in open position as usual. But Penny could not see the red lantern which she had noticed upon the trip down. Had the light been blown out by the wind?

In any case, it would not greatly matter, she reflected. Few cars traveled the private road. And any person who came that way would likely know about the bridge.

And then, above the steady hum of the motor boat engine, Penny heard another roar which steadily increased in intensity. A car was coming down the road at great speed!

"The lantern must be there," Penny thought. "It's probably hidden by a tree or the high bank. Of course it's there."

She listened with a growing tension. The car was not slowing down. Even Harry Griffith turned his head to gaze toward the entrance ramp of the drawbridge.

It was all over in an instant. A scream of brakes, a loud splintering of the wooden barrier. The speeding automobile struck the side of the steel bridge, spun sideways and careened down the bank to bury itself in the water.

CHAPTER 19 _A DARING RESCUE_

Those in the motor boat who had witnessed the disaster were too horrified to speak. They could see the top of the car rising above the water into which it had fallen, but there was no sign of the unfortunate driver or other possible occupants.

Penny began to kick off her shoes.

"No!" shouted her father, divining her purpose. "No! It's too dangerous!"

Penny did not heed for she knew that if the persons in the car were to be saved it must be by her efforts. Her father could not swim well and Harry Griffith was needed at the wheel of the motor boat.

Scrambling to the gunwale, the girl dived into the water. She could see nothing. Groping her way to the overturned coupe, she grasped a door handle and turned it. All her strength was required to pull the door open. Her breath was growing short now. She worked faster, with frantic haste.

A hand clutched her own. Before she could protect herself she felt the man upon her, clawing, fighting, trying to climb her shoulders, upward to the blessed air.

His grasp was loose. Penny ducked out of it but held fast to his hand.

She braced her feet against the body of the car and pushed. They both shot upward to the surface.

Griffith and her father lifted the man out of the water into the motor boat.

"Have to go down again," Penny gasped. "There may be others."

She dived once more, doubling herself into a tight ball, and giving a quick, upthrust of her feet which sent her straight to the bottom. She swam into the car and groped about on the seat and floor. Finding no bodies, she quickly shot to the surface again. Her father pulled her over the side, saying curtly: "Good work, Penny."

The victim she had saved seemed little the worse for his ducking. With Griffith's help he had divested himself of his heavy coat and was wringing it out.

Penny had obtained no clear view of the man, nor did she ever, for just at that moment, Jerry raised himself to a sitting position. He stared at the bedraggled one and pointed an accusing finger.

"That's the fellow!" he cried in an excited voice. "The one I was telling you about--"

The man took one look at Jerry and gazed quickly about. By this time the motor boat had drifted close to sh.o.r.e. Before anyone could make a move to stop him, the man hurled himself overboard. He landed on his feet in shallow water. Splashing through to the sh.o.r.e, he scuttled up the steep bank and disappeared in the darkness.

"Don't let him get away!" shouted Jerry. "He's the same fellow I saw in the woods!"

"You're certain?" asked Mr. Parker doubtfully.

"Of course! If you think I'm out of my head now, you're the one who's crazy! It's the same fellow! Oh, if I could get out of this boat!"

Griffith brought the craft to sh.o.r.e. "I'll see if I can overtake him," he said, "but he's probably deep in the woods by this time."

The boatman was a heavy-set man, slow on his feet. Penny and her father were not surprised when he came back twenty minutes later to report he had been unable to pick up the trail.

"The overturned car may offer a clue to his ident.i.ty," Mr. Parker said, as they started up the river once more. "The police will be able to check the license plates."

"I wonder what the man was doing at the estate?" Penny mused.

She groped her way toward the cabin, thinking that she would divest herself of some of her wet garments. Suddenly she stopped short.

"Dad, that fellow took off his coat!" she exclaimed. "He must have left it behind!"

"It's somewhere on the floor," Harry Griffith called to her.