“If I don’t get out some way,” he panted, “I’ll drown.”

It looked that way.  He felt a great spurt of water, pouring in rapidly when the ventilator dipped under the surface.  Then, too, the crash had wrenched the box structure at various seams.  Water was forcing its way in, bottom, sides and top.

From ankle-deep to knee-deep, Andy stood helpless.  Then, locating the door end of the vehicle, he drew back and massed all his muscle for a supreme effort.  Shoulders first Andy posed, and then threw himself forward, battering-ram fashion.  He felt he must act and that quickly, or else the worst might be his own.

CHAPTER XVIII

A FREAK OF NATURE

The doors at the rear of the wagon box gave way as Andy’s body met their inner surface with full force.  He stood now on a slant, his body submerged to the waist.

The box had crashed on top of one big flat rock in the river bed, and had tilted on this foundation against another upright rock.  But for this it might have gone clear under water or floated down stream, and Andy might have been drowned.

All through his stirring runaway experience Andy had kept possession of the registered mail pouch.  It was still slung from his shoulder as he gazed around him.  He was careful lest he disturb the equilibrium of the wreck.  He found out now that the door hinges had been knocked clear off and the frame badly wrenched in its fall.

“Hello! hello!” shouted an excited voice overhead.

“Hello yourself,” sang back Andy, looking up.

The driver of the team into which the runaway had so nearly dashed stood looking down from the bridge planking.  His eyes stared wide as Andy suddenly appeared like a jack-in-the-box.

“Was you in there?” gulped the man.

“I was nowhere else,” answered Andy.  “Say, mister, where’s that horse?”

“Oh, he’s all right.  See him?”

The man pointed along the other shore of the river bank.  Lute had crossed the bridge.  She had now taken herself to some marshy grass stretches, and was grazing placidly.

Andy was about twenty feet from the shore.  He could nearly make it by jumping from rock to rock, he thought.  At one or two places, however, the current ran strong and deep, and he saw that he might have to do some swimming.

“See here,” he called up to the man on the bridge, “have you got a rope?”

“Yes,” nodded the man.

“Long enough to reach down here?”

“I guess so.  Let’s try.  Wait a minute.”

He went to his wagon.  Shortly he dropped a new stout rope used in securing hay loads.  It had length and to spare.

Andy tied the mail pouch to its end.  Then he groped under water in the wagon box.  He managed to fish out the various parcels it held, including the newspaper bag.

These he sent up first.  Then the man at the other end braced the cable against a railing post.  Andy came up the rope with agility.