"By the great horn spoon!" exclaimed Alan. "Give me that candle."
In another moment he was at the drawing room table with a pencil in his hand. It did not take him long to make his calculations.
"Live and learn," he exclaimed finally. "I'm certainly all you said was a 'bum calculator.' Our altitude here is 6,875 feet, for I took it to-day just for practice. And we can carry in our balloon just exactly 693.6 pounds more than we figured."
"I thought so," laughed Ned. "It came to me in a dream, I guess. But you don't need to feel badly. You say I'm the boss, yet I never thought of it. You see, the trouble is that all the balloon ascensions ordinarily are made from the large cities of America or Europe. Who ever thought of ascending a mountain to get a start? But since we have done so we must figure accordingly."
"And what is the first thing you are going to add?" asked Alan.
"First thing?" exclaimed Ned. "First and last and in the middle, gasoline. We may find water in the mountains and we might even find food, but we're not going to find gasoline. Now we'll do part of our work whether Elmer meets us or fails."
The incident showed the essential difference between Ned's mind and Alan's. Alan was careful, precise, and adept in detail. Ned had the "dreams" and inspirations of an inventor.