The risk, however, was one she felt she must take. Struggling free from Louise’s clinging hands, she kicked off her shoes and tucked up her skirt. Then she plunged into the swirling water.
CHAPTER
20
EMERGENCY CALL
The current was much swifter than Penny had anticipated. It tugged viciously at her feet, giving her no opportunity to inch her way along the ditch. A dozen steps and she was beyond her depth, fighting desperately to keep from being swept with the current.
Although a strong swimmer, Penny found herself no match for the wild torrent. Only by going with it could she keep her head above water. To attempt to swim against it was impossible. Despairingly, she saw that she would miss the railroad station by many yards.
“I’ll be swept into the main body of the flood!” she thought in panic. “I shouldn’t have attempted it!”
Too late she tried to turn back toward the hillside. The swift current held her relentlessly. Struggling against it, her head went under. She choked as she breathed water, then fought her way to the surface again. The current carried her on.
After that first moment of panic, Penny did not waste her strength uselessly. Allowing the flood to carry her along, she took only a few slow strokes, swimming just enough to keep from being pulled beneath the surface. As calmly as she could she appraised the situation.
The station now was very close. Scarcely fifty yards separated her from it, but she knew her physical powers. Her strength was no match for that racing, swirling, debris-studded current. She could not hope to span the distance, short though it was.
Penny despaired. And then her heart leaped with new hope. Directly ahead, a foot and a half above the water’s murky surface, rose a steel rod with red and green signal targets. She recognized the object as a switch stand, used by trainmen to open and close the passing track switch.
“If I could reach that steel rod I could hold on!” she thought. “But do I have the strength?”