In the wild chase after the prize, Pemrose made a good third, as she thus shouted her fear.
“See–oh! see, it is landing,” she cried again, “c-coming down–touching earth.”
Yes! for one fleeting instant it did alight upon a mound, the shooting starlet, the little electric dry cell, winking brilliantly against the background of somber evergreens, now dark as Erebus, that girdle old Greylock’s crown.
Then, freakish firefly, there, it was off again, the prey of the nickum gusts, before ever a hand could touch it–the black parachute rotating like a whirligig.
Never–oh, never–was such a chase for such a prize since mountain was mountain and man was man!
Once again the steely clog, the weight of the five-inch box containing the recording apparatus, the precious log, almost dragged it to a standstill! But the summit gusts were strong.
Even the college boy began to have heart-quakes and Pemrose heart-sinkings.
“Jove! What a stunt you’re pulling off on us, you old black crow of a parachute–you booby-headed umbrella!” groaned he. “C-can’t you stay put for just a second? Or are you bent on leading us a dance through the woods?”
He began to lose hope of its landing in his lap, that breezy athlete, as it made straight for the jaws of darkness now, the inky spruce-belt–the parachute coquetting with its pursuers, like a great black fan.
Was–was it the wind then?