“Here it is, Hugh!” he remarked, coming up on the run with the line coiled on his left arm, where he had hurriedly placed it while on the move.
“Stretch it out, while I make a safe knot, one of the best we had to learn before we could be tenderfeet,” Hugh told him.
Bud hastened to cast the coils down, while Billy picked up one end and ran off with it.
While the leader was undoubtedly in something of a hurry, he did not mean in the least to neglect his duty; and never was a knot made more amply secure than the one that united those two ropes. Hugh tested it to his heart’s content, and then appeared satisfied that it would easily bear all the weight that must be placed upon it when they started to lower the aeronaut.
“Next thing is to examine the rope from the balloon, to make sure it’s all right,” Hugh said; “I know mine is up to standard, because before I came out to-day I tested it with a weight three times as heavy as Billy here, and that’s going some, let me tell you.”
He quickly ran over the rope, looking for defects and straining at each portion. In this way possibly precious seconds passed; but it was Hugh’s policy that “haste often makes waste.” He agreed with the backwoods Congressman, Davy Crockett, that it was always better to be sure he was right before going ahead.
“All right, is she, Hugh?” asked Bud eagerly, as the other reached the end of the second rope.
“Yes,” came the reply; “and now I want you fellows to keep hold of this end down here. You understand what I expect to do, don’t you?”
“I reckon it’s to pass the rope over a limb above the man, and then fasten it snug and tight to his body the best way you can,” replied Billy.
“Then we are to haul in the slack, till we get a tight rope,” added Arthur, taking up the thread of the explanation.