"Another, another," called Ned springing up the fragile length of the doubly laden ladder.
A thud on the ground told where another bag of ballast had fallen. The crash of the fallen fifty-pound bag of sand probably saved the Cibola. Shot after shot poured in the direction of the sound, although the Cibola, dragging forward, yet refused to rise. Elmer, at the bottom of the ladder, was helping the car onward in low bounds by touching the ground with one foot.
Then the air craft settled again. Elmer's weight was too much. A mad thought came into the boy's brain. The Indians had located the new invader and yells nearby told that hot pursuit was already being made. Then the spit, spit, of new shots showed the risk the boys had taken. Elmer realized it. Should he hang on and endanger the lives of his friends, or should he let go?
There seemed no time to think, but the boy's hand had already loosened when out of the black came the hot breath of the foremost pursuer. As the savage sprang forward Elmer's free arm gave him a blow full in the face. At the same instant the Cibola sprang upward like a bullet. A volley of shots rang out below, but they were too late. The balloon had saved Elmer's life, and even before the lad had made his way up the swaying ladder into the cabin it was a thousand feet in the air.
CHAPTER XXIII
CAMP EAGLE IN THE MOUNTAINS
It seemed too wonderful to be true. But words were proof enough that Ned Napier and Alan Hope had found a new use for dirigible balloons. Faithful Buck's death was more than the loss of a companion. In the short time the boys had known him he had shown that under his rough frontier bearing he was a brave and honest man.
"We can't go back now," explained Ned, "and we can't afford to land and wait for day. We can't all stay in the Cibola, and those of us who are landed must be left in a safe place. Our work," he continued turning to Bob, "is in the Tunit Chas Mountains, thirty miles west of here. It seems as if you had to know it. We'll go there to-night and land, if we can, on some isolated and inaccessible plateau. We'll make that our new relief camp and you and Elmer must take charge of it. To-morrow Alan and I will return in the Cibola to our abandoned wagon, bury Buck and bring away such of our stores as may be left. It's going to be a great loss, for I suppose the Indians have stolen everything. If the gasoline is gone it will cut short our work in the mountains."
"I don't think it will be lost," said Elmer, quietly. "We tried to save it. We rolled it into the river."