Another shout and once more all looked aloft. The air was full in all directions with thousands of fluttering pieces that looked like paper. When they fell among the crowd a shout of surprise went up.
“Money—Money—One dollar bills.”
Over the ground for miles around the Fair Grounds there fell a shower of one dollar bills. This was the last thing ever heard or seen of the two men and the aeroplane.
A few weeks later Pemberton and the President of the State Fair were talking in the President’s office. The President spoke:
“I have had two different planes up since Kidwell and Dexter were lost. The men went armed with shot guns and prepared for trouble. They were unable to find any upward current of air and they cruised all around in search of it. I am informed, though, that such a current would not necessarily always be in the same place, else it might stop altogether, just like winds near the earth. I have given up hope of anybody reaching the scene of the awful tragedy above.”
“If there ever was an awful tragedy above,” Pemberton added. The President looked at him in blank surprise.
“What?”
“I say if there ever was an awful tragedy above—if Kidwell and Dexter ever did get over two or three miles high.”
“What? Don’t you think that Kidwell and Dexter were killed by the monsters many miles above the earth, as they described? Why do you think they weren’t?”
Pemberton slowly answered: