“Pull him in!” ordered Jerry, and Ned and Bob began hauling on the line. A few seconds later, half unconscious, pale, and with closed eyes, Noddy was pulled on board.
“He’s dead!” cried Andy.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Jerry, as he began to turn the boat toward shore. “He wasn’t in the water more than three minutes. He’s fainted, I guess.”
“Better get him to shore as soon as possible,” suggested Professor Snodgrass. “He may have been injured.”
“I’m heading for that dock over there,” remarked Jerry, pointing to one on the Cresville side of the river. “We can lay him out there, and give first aid to the injured, and, if he’s swallowed any water, we can drain it out of him. Keep his head low and his feet high, fellows,” he said to Bob and Ned, who were holding Noddy. The rescued lad had not opened his eyes.
It was a hard fight against the powerful current of the flooded river to gain the dock, but Jerry made it, for the engine of our heroes’ craft was a fine one.
“Get him out now!” cried the tall lad, as he made the boat fast on the lower side of the dock, where the swirl of the river would not affect it. “Use artificial respiration.”
The motor boys knew how to do this, and in a little while they saw that Noddy was breathing more strongly. It developed later that he had been hit on the head by a piece of driftwood, rendering him partly unconscious, so that he swallowed more water than he would ordinarily have done.
“I guess he’s coming around all right now,” said Ned, as he noticed a fluttering of Noddy’s eyelids.