“Oh! now I recollect!” the man cried faintly, as though beginning to clutch at the solution of the mystery. “I was trying to signal to some soldiers to take hold of the rope. Then that tree caught the basket. I was suddenly torn out, and that is the last thing I remember. But how did you get me down here, my boys?”
“We happened to have a long rope, to be used in cliff climbing,” explained the patrol leader; “for we’re Boy Scouts out for practice, you see, sir. By adding your rope to ours we had plenty to lower you over a limb, all of sixty feet. I’ve bandaged your broken arm the best I could, and we’ll get you to town some way or other, sir, you may rest easy on that.”
The aeronaut was about to make some sort of reply, as he started to raise himself with Hugh’s assistance and the use of his well arm, when suddenly Arthur was heard to give a cry of consternation.
“Oh! looky at what’s happening to his things over there by the balloon, Hugh!” he shrieked. And as the other scouts turned their heads, they saw a sight that made them rub their eyes and wonder if they might not be dreaming.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE VALUE OF STRATEGY.
No wonder that the four scouts were staring with all their might. Surely it was enough to make any one believe he had the nightmare to see two figures in strangely striped clothes, very like the barred sides of the zebra in the circus, feverishly picking up the articles that had been scattered around when the basket of the balloon struck the ground.
“Gee whiz! what is it?” gasped Billy, as motionless as a marble statue in his surprise.
“The clothes—just like I saw on the convicts, when I was visiting my aunt over in the next county!” Bud said faintly; but his words gave them all a distinct clue, and they realized that it was not a bad dream, after all.
“That’s what they are, escaped convicts!” declared Hugh, emphatically.
“But they’re hooking all the professor’s things, Hugh!” Billy found voice to add. “Are we going to stand for that?”