As it happened that the trees grew sparsely in that quarter, they were able to watch the approach of the sky traveler in his disabled balloon. All of the boys took it for granted that he must have ascended at some fair ground, and met with an accident that had prevented a return to earth under normal conditions.
“There’s no question about that,” the patrol leader replied to Bud’s question; “and now it is easy to see that there is a man in that wobbling basket.”
“Yes, and as you said, he’s making motions to us to do something,” added Arthur, as he hurriedly opened his camera and prepared to take a snapshot of the balloon.
“What can we do to help him, Hugh?” Billy demanded, apparently ready to dash forward at headlong speed if only the order came from the patrol leader.
“Nothing just now, the way things stand,” came the reply. “He is coming as straight toward us as if we had a line and were pulling him. Wait till the balloon gets here, and if there happens to be a trailing rope, we’ll grab hold of that, and wind it around a stump or a rock to anchor the old runaway.”
“That sounds sensible, Hugh,” admitted Billy, always ready to agree with the leader.
“Look at the thing swing up and down, will you?” cried Bud. “Boys, it will be a lucky thing for the professor if he gets out of that scrape with his life. As for me, you’d have to ring the bell lots of times before I’d go up a mile high in one of those flimsy silk bags. Wow! did you see how close it came to that tall tree right then? That would have done the business, I reckon. And there are lots more of the same kind ahead of him yet.”
“Do you see a trailing rope, boys?” asked Hugh. “Sometimes they let one down and have a weight on it for a drag anchor. Seems to me I can glimpse something of the kind now and then.”
“You’re right, Hugh, it’s there!” ejaculated Arthur, who had already snapped off one view of the advancing balloon.
“Everybody get ready to lay hold and fight like everything to check the runaway,” Billy remarked, squaring himself for action in a way he had, just as if he expected to enter a contest of skill and endurance with a prize at stake.