“But whether the poor fellow’s alive or not, how are we going to get him down from away up there?” asked Arthur.
“Leave that to Hugh,” said Billy wisely.
The first thing Hugh did was to glance hastily around him, as though looking for something he expected to need.
“Oh! it’s that long rope he brought with him to use in the cliff-climbing experiments!” exclaimed Arthur, as he saw the other bend down and secure the article in question, which he must have dropped when he arrived under the tree where the wandering balloon had met its final Waterloo.
Billy looked relieved. His faith, then, had not been misplaced, for Hugh now had means in his possession for lowering the unfortunate aeronaut. Just how the boy would go about it, of course Billy did not exactly know; but he smiled, and took a new interest in the matter.
“Somebody cut away that rope from the basket,” Hugh directed first of all.
“You mean the one that was trailing down?” asked Bud, as he immediately produced his pocket knife, the blades of which he always kept in prime condition.
“Yes, be quick, Bud. I’m going to knot it to my rope, if it seems stout enough,” the leader told him. “That ought to give me a long enough line to double from the ground up to that place.”
“Oh! I see how you mean to do it, Hugh!” observed Billy, wagging his head as though understanding Hugh’s solution for the puzzle.
Already Bud had cut the trailer rope just where it was fastened to the overturned basket. As he did so, he could not fail to notice that a number of seemingly valuable instruments, such as are used by aeronauts in their daring voyages among the clouds, were scattered about, and that a little box lay near them.