As for the young air navigators, they were the coolest people in that neighborhood. Tom cut the balloon loose, and it went sagging and wallowing off, dropping in a field a short time later. In the meantime, Jack began to send the Flying Road Racer earthward, using the depression planes in doing so.
The boy they had rescued speedily found his tongue, and when he did he told them a story that made them flush with indignation. He had been hired out to the circus, he said, by his father some years before. From that time on his life had been one of misery. Urged on by the ringmaster’s whip, he had learned to ride bareback and do some other tricks, but this had been his first trip aloft. The way in which he shuddered as he spoke of it, showed that only the utmost cruelty could have prevailed on him to make an ascent on the hot-air balloon.
The regular parachute jumper had been injured—disabled for life—by a fall at the last “stand” the circus had played. As the boy, who said his name was Ralph Ingersoll, was light and active, he had been ordered to take the parachute performer’s place, by the brutal men to whose care he had been consigned. Terrified by threats of a terrific beating, the boy had consented, with what results we know.
“Oh! If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been killed,” he exclaimed, clasping his hands and gazing gratefully at his rescuers.
“Never mind, Ralph,” said Mr. Jesson, whose indignation had been aroused by the lad’s recital, “we’ll see what we can do to stop any further ill treatment of you.”
“Oh, then you are going to take me back to the circus!” cried the boy, a look of real terror coming over his thin, pale face.
“Well, for the present, yes,” said Mr. Jesson, “but we will have your case investigated, and the law——”
“No law will save me if you take me back,” cried the boy, crouching in a spasm of fear, “they’ll kill me—beat me to death, or do away with me in some way before you can save me.” As he spoke, the Flying Road Racer reached the ground, and the crowd came rushing and surging about it. Through the press, the two men who had so angrily watched the Boy Inventors’ plucky rescue came shoving their way. A look of black rage was on both their faces.
“Now, then,” shouted the man with the whip, as he pushed his way to the side of the Flying Road Racer, “what’s all this mean? What right had you to interfere with this lad?”
“The right that everyone has to save a human life,” rejoined Mr. Jesson firmly, standing between the angry man and the boy, who crouched behind his protector in an agony of fear.