As the party stood round, drinking a stirrup-cup to old Wharton's success, Texan was heard to remark:
'Say! this pison's pretty strong.'
'What's the matter with the pison, Texan? What in thunder air you grumbling at now?' said the Judge. 'I reckon it's pretty good rye, anyways.'
'Well, pard, I ain't going to quarrel with the rye; but I ain't drunk, am I? There's no skim milk got into my boots yet, is there?' asked Texan.
'Wal, no,' replied his friend, 'but what are you driving at?'
'Thet's it,' replied Texan, pointing straight overhead, 'but if I didn't think that it must be the "tangle-legs" that done it, I'd say that theer were a balloon. It ain't an eagle, anyway.'
They all looked up, and sure enough far overhead was a big round bubble, as it were, floating rapidly to the north-west. There was no doubt about it. By using their glasses they could even distinguish the car of the balloon, but even Snap's glasses (the best of the lot) could help them no further than that. They could not make out any figure in the car.
'I guess it's a runaway balloon from Chicago or St. Paul,' said Wharton, 'and kicky no one's in it, too. I wish I had the dollars that toy cost, but I reckon no one will ever catch it this side the Rockies.'
For a time they stood watching this ship of the sky drifting ever further and further from their sight, and rising, it seemed to them, ever higher and higher above the earth. At last it faded altogether from their sight, and the sky looked as calm and unruffled as if no lost bark had ever rushed through it.
'It's going our way,' said Wharton, 'pretty straight. I wonder, now, if those superstitious Johnnies one meets sometimes would call that a lucky or an unlucky omen?'