CHAPTER X.
AN INVOLUNTARY AËRONAUT.
"Steady, Tom, steady," warned Jack, as he set the pumps to work drawing gas from the bag into the reservoir.
The Wondership, her buoyancy thus diminished, began to descend.
"What are you going to do?" asked Tom.
"Drop our passenger," said Jack, with a grin he could not suppress, for the struggling farmer was within a few feet of the ground now and even if he did kick himself loose, for his struggles had begun again, he could not have hurt himself much.
"Back up till we get over that haystack," said Jack, "and then play out rope till we lower him. It'll make a nice soft jumping-off place."
Tom obeyed, pulling a reverse lever. The Wondership, steered with skill by Jack's practiced hand, backed slowly up. At length they hung directly over the haystack. Jack turned and nodded. Tom sprang to the rope and lowered the indignant farmer into the soft hay. The man lost no time in disentangling himself. Then he sprang to his feet and began hurling vituperation at them at the top of his lungs.
"I'll have ther law on yer fer this," he yelled. "Tryin' ter kidnap me and bustin' down my barn. I'll see whether such goin's on is allowed in ther sufferin' state uv Massachusetts, yew see if I don't, consarn yer. I'll——"
But the Wondership, bearing the two boys who could not help laughing heartily, although they feared serious consequences might come of the accident, was winging its way onward out of earshot of the not unnaturally indignant Ezra Perkins.
They passed Rayburn before Jack noticed a peculiar smell in the atmosphere.
It was leaking gas. Then, for the first time, he recollected that the farmer might have hit the gas bag above them with his double shots, although, till then, there had been no indication that such was the case.
He called Tom to the wheel, explaining his suspicions and clambered out on the rigging to see if he could find any holes in the balloon. It would have made a less steady boy dizzy and sick to stand on the edge of the Wondership, clinging to one of the supports that held the body of the craft to the gas-bag, while the whole affair plunged and swayed five hundred feet above the earth. But Jack, used as he was to navigating the air, felt none of these qualms.
His suspicions were speedily confirmed. There was a jagged hole in the underbody of the balloon, from which gas was rushing. Jack's face grew grave. The situation was dangerous.
He knew, as does every balloonist, that out-rushing gas can make an electric spark in the atmosphere which, in turn, ignites the gas itself, sometimes with fatal results. Experts in aëronautics attribute the disasters befalling the long series of Zeppelins, the giant German dirigibles, to this cause.
"Tom, we must go down. Drop at once," he said. "That old fellow succeeded in blowing a hole in us all right."
The pumps were set to work and the Wondership fell rapidly. They dropped in a field by the roadside, landing on the running wheels as lightly as a feather, thanks to the shock absorbers, similar to those of an automobile, with which the Wondership was equipped.
"Now for the repair kit," said Jack, rummaging a locker.
He soon had balloon silk, big shears, a quick-drying gum solution and a pot of gasproof varnish, ready for the job of patching up the hole. But first they had to empty the big bag of gas. This was speedily done, for already enough had escaped to wrinkle the bag like a walnut, with hollows and creases.
Jack cut out a patch of balloon silk large enough to fit the hole and spread it with the adhesive gum solution. This he placed inside the hole, spreading it out so that when pressure was applied it would be pressed firmly against the aperture. Then he coated the patch with the gasproof varnish, and both boys sat down to give the job time to "set."
Their eyes turned idly to the high-road. It was about noon and there was a heavy sort of silence in the air. Far on the horizon they could make out great billowy masses of white cloud. Piled and castellated against the sky they assumed all kinds of odd shapes.
"Thunder heads," said Jack. "We shall have a storm before to-night."
"It's sultry enough for anything," said Tom, taking off his cap and mopping his forehead. "I'd hate to be walking in this weather like that fellow yonder."
A man had come into sight, plodding along with bent head and eyes on the ground as if he was very tired. The gray dust of the road coated him from head to foot. He walked with a kind of dragging gait.
Over his shoulder he carried some sort of a bundle on a stick. His hat was a broad sombrero, like a cowboy's. It was a kind of headgear seldom seen in the east and attracted the boys' attention. Round the man's neck was a red handkerchief, the only spot of color on his dust-covered person. He had a great yellow beard and rather long, unkempt hair.
"Tramp," hazarded Tom.
Jack shook his head.
"Doesn't look like that to me somehow," he said. "I rather think——"
Round the corner whizzed a big red automobile. It was coming fast. The driver, a young man, had his head turned and was talking to three companions who sat in the tonneau. He did not see the dusty traveler in the road ahead.
The boys set up a shout.
"Look out! you'll run him down. Look out——"
But their caution came too late. At top speed the auto struck the wayfarer, and before the boys' horrified eyes he was thrown high in the air, to fall, a confused sprawl of legs and arms, at the wayside.