Either his body had lost its buoyancy or the water was pulling him down. He seemed to be in a whirlpool. The force of the water drew at his arms and his legs and clutched him about the chest. Around and around he whirled, until he grew dizzy with the motion and his lungs seemed bursting for want of air.
Then, almost unconscious, he knew that he was being drawn through an opening into which the water poured with awful force. He knew that he was being tossed to and fro in something like a basin or pool a moment later, and felt the fresh air creeping into his lungs.
The water where he lay did not seem to be more than three or four feet deep but the current was swift and steady. There was no light anywhere. The boy groped forward with his hands outstretched until he came to what seemed to be a ledge of rock. There, exhausted and almost unconscious from his exertions, he dropped down and his mind became a blank.
When he returned to consciousness, a single shaft of light penetrating the darkness of the place showed him to be in a cavern the dimensions of which he had no means of knowing. The ledge upon which he had fallen lay a yard or so above the surface of an underground stream. He could see the light glancing on the water and hear the roar of the whirlpool which had brought him into this subterranean place.
“I’ve found the lost channel, I guess,” he thought bitterly, “and I guess there’ll be two of us lost—a lost river and a lost boy.”
After a time, he felt his way along the ledge only to find that it came to an abrupt termination against a shoulder of rock.
[CHAPTER XXII—WHAT THE EDDY BROUGHT UP]
When Case and Jule gained the deck of the Rambler, crying that Alex was back in the forest pursued by the outlaws, Captain Joe laid out a choice assortment of automatic revolvers along the deck behind the starboard gunwale. The dripping boys crouched down and waited.
“He wasn’t very far behind us,” Case said directly.
“Yes,” Jule put in. “He ought to be here before long.”