"Paul, do you think that can be a man hanging there?" cried Seth. "Sometimes it looks to me like it was; and then again the balloon tilts over so much I just can't be sure."
"We'll know soon enough," remarked the patrol leader, quietly, "because, as you can see, the runaway balloon is heading this way, full tilt. I wouldn't be surprised if it passed right over our heads."
"Say, perhaps we might grab hold of some trailing rope, and bring the old thing down?" suggested Fritz, looking hastily around him while speaking, as if desirous of being prepared, as a true scout should always make it a point to be, and have his tree picked out, about which he would hastily wind a rope, should he be fortunate enough to get hold of such.
"Whew! I wouldn't want to be in that feller's shoes," observed Eben, as they all stood there in the road, watching the rapidly approaching balloon.
"Solid ground for me, every time, except when I'm in swimming, or skimming along over the ice in winter!" Andy interjected, without once removing his eager eyes from the object that had so suddenly caught their attention.
It was a sight calculated to hold the attention of any one, with that badly battered balloon sweeping swiftly along on the wind, and approaching so rapidly.
All of them could see that there was a man clinging to the ropes that marked the place where the customary basket should have been; evidently this latter must have been torn away during a collision with the rocks or trees on the top of a ridge with which the ungovernable gas-bag had previously been in contact; and it was a marvel how the aeronaut had been able to cling there.
"Will it land near here, d'ye think, Paul?" asked Jotham, round-eyed with wonder, and feeling very sorry for the wretched traveler of the upper air currents, who seemed to be in deadly peril of his life.
"I hardly think so," replied the scoutmaster, rapidly measuring distances with his ready eye, and calculating upon the drop of the half collapsed balloon.
"But see where the bally old thing's heading, will you?" cried Seth, "straight at the place where them crows came out of. Say, wouldn't it be awful tough now, if it dropped right down in the heart of Black Water Swamps, where up to now never a human being has set foot, unless some Indian did long ago, when the Shawnees and Sacs and Pottawattomies and all that crowd rampaged through this region flat-footed."