'We're a-goin' down pretty smart now, sonny!' said Wharton; 'here, give yourself a hoist-up. There, that's better,' he said, as Frank reached a sitting posture on the ring again.
It seemed almost as if, at last, a spirit of peace had entered into the great creature above them. The air was brilliantly clear now, and the first faint stars had come out. Down, down, the balloon kept going, but steadily and evenly. The mists had cleared away now, and in the starlight our voyagers could see the earth spread out like a great map beneath them. It all looked level—almost hollow—as they looked down upon it, and by no means gave them the idea of being part of a solid sphere.
The balloon must have risen into a current of strong wind, for in the short time since they had risen from over the Indian encampment they had passed over the forest-belt and were now descending upon the prairie by the river whereon the Crows used to have their autumn camp, until the Spirit of the Lone Mountain appeared and frightened them away. From point to point it must have been a distance of twenty miles, but what is that to a machine which has been known to travel at the rate of ninety miles an hour? Dick could not help exclaiming, when he saw the distance which they had passed over:
'If you could only break these here critters to stop when you want 'em to, and to be a bit handy in turning, I reckon there would be a considerable fall in railway shares.'
'Yes,' replied Frank, 'if the old German's invention for steering balloons is as good as his invention for keeping the gas in them, it would have made a good fortune for us all. Poor Snap!'
'Never mind Snap, sonny,' said old Wharton, roughly trying to hide his emotion. 'You bet he don't want no fortunes where he's got took to.'
'I suppose it wouldn't do to jump out now,' said Frank after a while, as the balloon swept slowly along, quite close to the ground.
'Not unless you prefer hopping to walking for the rest of your life,' said Wharton. 'You'd be lucky if you only smashed one leg.'
Just at that moment the light of the moon flashed back from a small prairie-lake. Before the buffalo had left the prairie it had been a favourite wallow and drinking-place of theirs. Now it was drying up for want of its old-fashioned visitors, who beat and trampled its mud floor into such a solid substance that it held the water all through the long summer months. Still, there was a very considerable sheet of water left.
'Dick!' cried Towzer, 'if we go over that I'll drop into it; it can't hurt much, and I'm not going up again.'