“It must be the balloon that little ragged fellow told about, the same one that I saw when I took that header from the bicycle,” decided Frank. “There couldn’t have been any one in it. Oh, say—but there was, Mercy!” and Frank gave a violent start and quick gasp. He stood transfixed with a sudden thrilling emotion akin to terror.
His eye sweeping the tree expanse keenly, he now made out, lying across two limbs about thirty feet from the ground, a human figure.
This form was motionless, and bent the branches considerably. As the breeze stirred them, they rocked like a cradle.
Frank guessed out the situation instantly. The balloon had driven or dropped into the tree top, shattering the cage and tipping out its pilot.
The latter had sustained a twenty-foot fall, striking some big branches with 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 waking moment, a treacherous shifting of the wind, might precipitate the imperilled balloonist to the ground with a broken neck.
Frank’s nerves were on a hard strain, but he grew composed as he decided what he would do. He motioned the dog to silence, and at once started to climb the tree.
He kept his eye on the swaying figure overhead all the time. At length Frank reached a big crotched branch shooting out from the main trunk not four feet under that which sustained the unconscious balloonist.
Frank braced his feet across the crotch. He took a great, long breath of relief and satisfaction, for he found himself now so situated that if the man should stir or slip from his insecure resting place, he could retard his fall.
Frank had, upon leaving home, placed a long coil of rope in his coat pocket. This he intended to use to tie up the bicycle in case he found it necessary to take it home to repair it. He now used this to form a criss-cross sort of a hammock directly under the two branches supporting the balloonist.
“There,” said Frank finally, feeling he had the man in right shape at last. “If he drops, that contrivance will hold him like a net.”