OVERBOARD INTO THE RIVER
"I can't understand it," Phil mused, as the soft evening breezes lulled him into slumber.
"What! What!" he cried suddenly. "What is it? I'm falling!"
The deck of the "Marie" all at once seemed to have dropped from beneath him. He felt himself falling through space. What could it mean?
With the showman's instinct the Circus Boy quickly turned his body, spread out his hands and righted himself.
The night was black, and as yet he had not succeeded in collecting his senses sufficiently to decide what had happened. He knew that he was falling, but that was all.
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.