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.
[159]

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—”
[160]

The man took one look at Jerry and gazed quickly about. By this time the motor boat had drifted close to shore. 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 shore, 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 shore. “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 identity,” Mr. Parker said, as they started up the river once more. “The police will be able to check the license plates.&rdq............