"There's a circus over at Warrendale," announced Ted. "Perhaps she broke away from there in a wind storm, or else bucked the aviators out. Whew! think of tumbling down hundreds of feet! Guess I couldn't 'a' been of much use around there, if that's what happened to the air navigators; the more the pity," and Ted actually looked discontented, as though another golden opportunity had slipped past him.
"Sounds like a good guess, Ted," remarked Elmer; "but there happen to be several things to knock it silly."
"As what?" demanded the boy with the long legs, who always wanted to be shown.
"For instance, you know where Warrendale lies, off to the east from here," the scout leader explained, in the most accommodating way possible, "while this thing must have come from the west! You saw it sail over the mountain up there, and we've been having constant west winds for several days now. Isn't that so, Mr. Garrabrant?"
"Every word of it, Elmer," replied the gentleman, who was never happier than when listening to this wide-awake scout substantiating his claim.
"And besides, here's a name sewed to the balloon—Republic! Seems to me, sir, I've seen that name before. Unless I'm away off it was one of the big gas bags entered for that long-distance endurance race, which was to come off away out in St. Louis, or somewhere along the Mississippi River."
"Oh! my, just to think of it, fellows!" gasped Toby, his face fairly aglow with overwhelming delight, while he continued to fondle the material of which the collapsible balloon was constructed, as though he might be almost worshiping the same.
"Why, that's hundreds and hundreds of miles away!" declared another incredulous one.
"Don't seem possible, does it, that a balloon could sail that far?" a third had the temerity to remark, when Toby turned upon him instantly, saying:
"Say, you don't read the papers, do you? If you did you'd know that in a drifting race a balloon went all the way without touching ground from St. Louis up into New England, while another passed over into Canada away up above Quebec, and won the race. Others fell near Baltimore, and such places. There can't be any doubt about it, boys, this wanderer has drifted all the way from the old Mississippi. But whatever could have become of her crew?"