CHAPTER V
THE BALLOONIST’S RESCUE
There was a sharp bang as the bicycle struck the tree stump. Frankrighted himself readily and ran to the machine where it had fallen.
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed, “tire punctured and the wheel a pretty bad wreckgenerally.”
This was true. A jagged sliver had ripped a hole in both the outer andinner tubes of the front wheel. The hard bang against the tree stump hadtwisted several spokes out of place and set a rim wobbling.
Frank had started in such a hurry from Riverton that morning that he hadnot thought of taking his mending kit along. He debated what he shoulddo without further loss of time.
“I might carry it,” he reflected. “If I try to run it, I will loosen itup more and lose some of the parts. Guess I’ll leave it here, get mymessage to Mr. Buckner, stop at the house for my tool kit, and fix themachine up right here. This way, my staunch and trusty friend,” hehailed to Christmas. “Watch it, old fellow, watch it,” said Frank tothe dog, placing his hand on the wheel.
Christmas looked longingly after his young master as Frank started onfoot for Greenville. However, the animal posed right alongside thebicycle. Frank knew that it would take a loaded cannon to drive thetrusty canine from the vicinity of his charge until he himselfreappeared and gave the word.
It was just one o’clock when Frank, a trifle dusty and footsore, enteredthe office of Mr. Buckner.
“Well, well, good for you, Frank,” commended the insurance man, as heglanced at the clock and then at his visitor’s beaming face. “Of courseyou succeeded?”
“I did,” admitted Frank, a little proudly, “but there was a tangle.”
“Ah, indeed?”
“Yes, sir. Dorsett was on the spot. There is the receipt. I had to climbfor it.”
“What do you mean?”
Frank told of the circumstances of his exploit at Mr. Pryor’s office atRiverton. Mr. Buckner lay back in his chair chuckling and laughing. Thenhe got up and clapped Frank approvingly on the shoulder with one hand,and with the other extended a crisp new five-dollar bill.
“I am glad to get this,” said Frank, “but I have hardly earned so much,I think.”
“What! when you saved the day by your nimbleness and square commonsense? See here, Frank, I’m mightily pleased with you, and if you willdrop in here to-morrow I think I can put you in the way of earning a fewmore of those precious notes.”
Frank bowed his thanks and left the office with a light heart. He wentstraight home, entered the house quietly, and actually startled hismother by silently dropping the five-dollar bill on the book in her lap.
Mrs. Ismond shared her son’s pleasure when Frank recited his briskexperiences of the morning. He ate a good lunch with appetizing vigor,secured his bicycle repair kit, and was soon down the road, whistlingcheerily all the way to the big woods.
As Frank neared the spot where he had left Christmas and the bicycle, hewas greeted with loud and repeated barking.
“That’s strange,” he mused. “Christmas isn’t given to such demonstrationswhen on duty. Some one must have come in sight or hearing. Hey, oldfellow, what’s all this rumpus?” questioned Frank, as, emerging from acopse, he came in full view of the dog.
Christmas was running up and down in front of the bicycle. He would facein a certain direction and pose and bark. He even ran up to his masteras Frank approached, and seizing his coat in his teeth gently butresolutely pulled him in the direction he had pointed.
“He means something by all this,” declared Frank. “Go ahead,” heordered.
Christmas, thus advised, bounded forward among some big trees. Frank,coming up with him after a jaunt of about three hundred feet, found himsquatted on his haunches under a giant oak tree, looking up among itsbranches. Frank looked up, too. A moving object attracted his attention.
“Why,” said Frank, staring fixedly, “it’s a balloon.”
This he discerned beyond question. He could plainly make out its slackrigging. An ungainly, half-distended gas bag was wobbling about in thetopmost branches of the tree. Lower down, turned sideways and partlysmashed in, was a big wicker basket.
“It must be the balloon that little ragged fellow told about, the sameone that I saw when I took that header from the bicycle,” decidedFrank. “There couldn’t have been any one in it. Oh, say--but therewas, Mercy!” and Frank gave a violent start and quick gasp. He stoodtransfixed with a sudden thrilling emotion akin to terror.
His eye sweeping the tree expanse keenly, he now made out, lying acrosstwo limbs about thirty feet from the ground, a human figure.
This form was motionless, and bent the branches considerably. As thebreeze stirred them, they rocked like a cradle.
Frank guessed out the situation instantly. The balloon had driven ordropped into the tree top, shattering the cage and tipping out itspilot.
The latter had sustained a twenty-foot fall, striking some big brancheswith enough force to stun him. He had landed on his present frail perch.Frank’s heart almost stood still as he realized that a single wakingmoment, a treacherous shifting of the wind, might precipitate theimperilled balloonist to the ground with a broken neck.
Frank’s nerves were on a hard strain, but he grew composed as he decidedwhat he would do. He motioned the dog to silence, and at once started toclimb the tree.
He kept his eye on the swaying figure overhead all the time. At lengthFrank reached a big crotched branch shooting out from the main trunk notfour feet under that which sustained the unconscious balloonist.
Frank braced his feet across the crotch. He took a great, long breath ofrelief and satisfaction, for he found himself now so situated that ifthe man should stir or slip from his insecure resting place, he couldretard his fall.
Frank had, upon leaving home, placed a long coil of rope in his coatpocket. This he intended to use to tie up the bicycle in case he foundit necessary to take it home to repair it. He now used this to form acriss-cross sort of a hammock directly under the two branches supportingthe balloonist.
“There,” said Frank finally, feeling he had the man in right shape atlast. “If he drops, that contrivance will hold him like a net.”
The youth rested for a few minutes, for it had been no easy task to slipthe rope around the two branches and secure it stoutly. When he againstood up, he moved along his footing so that his face was on a levelwith the strange bed of the balloonist.
The latter lay sunk down among bending twigs like a person in a hammock.His face was bloodless, and over one temple was a great lump. That wasprobably where a heavy branch had struck and stunned him.
The stranger was fairly well-dressed, and he had intelligent features.For all this, however, there was a careless, easy-going look about him.He did not at all suggest to Frank the quick-witted, nerve-strainedtypical aeronaut.
Frank made his footing very sure, braced firmly, and with one hand tooka stout grasp under the sleeper’s collar.
“Wake up--wake up,” he called directly in his ear.
The man stirred faintly, only. Frank continued to call out to him. Healso with his other hand slapped his chest, his cheeks, his outstretchedpalms.
Finally with a deep groan the man opened his eyes wide suddenly. Hestared and mumbled and tried to start up, but Frank held him flat.
“Easy, mister, now,” warned Frank gently. “Take time to find out the fixyou are in. Then let me help you to the ground.”
“Help me--why, ginger! I understand,” exclaimed the balloonist.
He lay back weakly, staring at Frank, then all about him, and finally upat the gas bag flopping about in the upper branches of the tree top.
“I remember now,” he went on in a drawling, reminiscent tone. “It was aquick drop. Valve blew out. A regular smash when we landed. She’s awreck, isn’t she? And say,” and the man glancing sideways downwardshuddered, “if I had gone the full header it would have been all daywith me, eh?”
Frank nodded. Briefly he explained how he had come
to discover therefugee’s plight. He helped the man to sit up, guiding and assistinghim. The latter came slowly out of his maze of bewilderment, and lookedgrateful.
“You’ve saved me, I guess,” he observed. “One move or slip, and I’d havegone shooting down the rest of the way.”
“When you are ready, let me help you to the ground,” suggested Frank.
“Oh, I’m all right now. Just a little shaking up,” assured the man. “No,no, don’t you worry. I’m at home among trapezes.”
The balloonist extricated himself successfully from the swaying branchesand poised in a crotch nearer to the main trunk of the tree.
“Just a minute,” he said, deftly going up the tree, clambering over theshattered basket and reaching up.
There was a great hiss and a dense taint of escaping gas in the air ashe operated some valve in the mechanism of the balloon. The gas bagdropped gracefully to a mass of silken and rubber folds.
Then the man started to descend, Frank preceding him. Both reached theground in safety. The balloonist took an approving look at Frank, pattedChristmas and began arranging his disordered attire.
“What are you going to do next?” asked Frank, after his companion hadwalked around the tree two or three times, viewing its top speculativelythe while, and whistling softly to himself.
“Well, the bag is safe for a time. I guess I’d better get to the nearesttown and telegraph the boss. It will be a job getting the balloon out ofthat fix without further damage.”
“If you will rest a bit till I fix up a broken bicycle I have overyonder, I will pilot you to Greenville,” said Frank.
“Good for you,” commended the man, and he followed Frank to the spotwhere the wheel lay.
Frank set at work on the damaged bicycle. He now had the necessary toolsand material at hand to fix it up. At the end of ten minutes he had thewheel in safe shape to roll it home, where he could repair it morepermanently.
Meantime his companion rattled on volubly. He told Frank his name wasPark Gregson. He was a sort of a “knockaround.” He had been with acircus, had fought Indians, had been major in the South African War, hadcircumnavigated the globe twice, in fact, a Jack-of-all-trades andmaster of none for over fifteen years.
“That balloon,” he explained, “belongs to a professional aeronaut. Hehired me to help him. She’s a new one, that yonder. I was making a trialcruise. Professor Balmer, who owns her, is at Circleville. As I say, Imust wire him to come and get her on her feet again.”
“You mean her wings?” suggested Frank.
“Exactly. Ready? No, you needn’t help me, I’m only a trifle bruised andstiff.”
Frank led the way townwards. He stopped at the house to put his bicycleaway. Then he accompanied his companion to the railroad depot. Here ParkGregson wrote out a telegram and handed it to the operator.
“Expect an answer,” he observed. “I’ll call for it. No, send it to me. Isay, Newton,” he addressed Frank with friendly familiarity, “where’s thebest place to put up till the professor reports himself?”
“There’s a fairly good hotel here,” said Frank.
Gregson looked a trifle embarrassed for an instant. Then he laughed,saying.
“They’ll have to take me in penniless till the professor arrives.”
“That will be all right,” declared Frank. “I’ll vouch for you. But say,if you would be our guest at home, you will be very welcome.”
“And I will be very delighted to have your most entertaining company,”instantly replied Gregson. “I’ll make it all right when the boss comes.”
Frank was glad to offer this hospitality to his new chance acquaintance.The man interested him. Everything he talked about he covered in a vividway that made his descriptions instructive. Already he had suggestedsome points to Frank that had set the latter thinking in new directions.The wide experience of the man was suggestive and valuable to Frank.
Park Gregson asked the telegraph operator to send any reply to hismessage to the Newton home, and accompanied Frank there.
As they neared the cottage a man in a gig came driving down the road. Itwas Dorsett.
He glared fiercely at Frank, and then bestowed an inquisitive, suspiciouslook upon the stranger.
Frank introduced Gregson to his mother, who prepared a lunch for him.Gregson was more shaken up than he had expressed, and was glad to liedown and rest in the neatly-furnished spare room of the cottage.
Frank had some odd chores to do about the village. When he camehome again about six o’clock he found Gregson refreshed-looking andcomfortably seated in the parlor reading a book.
They had a pleasant time at the supper table. Then they adjourned to thecozy little sitting-room. Christmas was allowed to stay in the house,and seemed to enjoy the animated ways of the balloonist as much as theothers.
Park Gregson fairly fascinated them with the story of his travels andadventures in many countries.
“You see, I have been quite a rolling stone, Mrs. Ismond,” he said. “Aharmless one, though.”
“Have you never thought of settling down to some regular occupation,sir?” suggested Frank’s mother.
“It’s not in me, madam, I fear,” declared the knockaround. “I did try itonce, for a fact. Yes, I actually went into business.”
“What was the line, Mr. Gregson?” asked Frank.
“Mail order business.”
Frank showed by the expression of his face that the balloonist hadstruck a theme of great interest to him.
“I had a partner,” went on Gregson. “We advertised and sold sets ofrubber finger tips to protect the hands of housewives when working aboutthe house.”
“Was it a success?” inquired Frank.
“It was great--famous. The orders just rolled in. We made money handover fist and spent it like water. One day, though, there came a stop toit all. A lawyer served an injunction on us. It seemed that the devicewas a French invention patented in this country. My partner sloped withmost of the funds, leaving me stranded. All the same, it’s a greatbusiness--the mail order line.”
For over an hour Frank kept their guest busy answering a hundred earnestquestions as to all the details of the mail order business.
When Gregson had retired for the night Frank sat silent and thoughtfulin the company of his mother. Finally he said.
“Mother, Mr. Gregson’s talk has done me a lot of good.”
“I saw you were very much interested,” remarked Mrs. Ismond.
“Interested!” repeated Frank with vim, unable to control his restlessspirit and getting up and pacing the room to and fro--“I am simply wildto go deeper into this mail order business. Why, it looks plain as dayto me--the way to begin it--the way to exploit it--the way to make agreat big success of it. He says that little metal novelties of thehousehold kind take the best. I was just thinking: there’s a hardwarenovelties factory right on the spot at Pleasantville, and--Down,Christmas, down!”
The dog had interrupted Frank with a low growl. Then, before Frank coulddeter him, the animal flew at the open window of the sitting-room.
Frank seized Christmas by the collar, just as the animal was aiming toleap clear through it to the garden outside.
“Why, what is the matter, Christmas?” spoke Mrs. Ismond, arising to herfeet in some surprise.
Just then a frightful shriek rang out from under the open window,accompanied by the frantic words:
“Help, murder, help--I’m nearly killed!”