"We'll try Jerrold!" said Matt. "He keeps the Eagle in that big back yard of us, and perhaps he can help us out with the Hawk."
"Drop down in the yard, anyhow," suggested Ferral, "and take chances."
Dropping down in such a gale was hazardous business.
How Matt ever executed the manœuvre as safely as he did he could not have told, for a good many things had to be done, and done quickly.
He flung the Hawk downward full fifty feet before he reached the confines of Jerrold's big back yard. The air ship had to slide sixty feet down the void, and in sliding those sixty feet the wind carried her over more than the fifty feet necessary to clear Jerrold's high board fence.
The bottom of the car struck the ground with a jolt that tipped Carl out heels over head. Carl had been standing ready with one of the mooring ropes, and he still clung to it. Ferral went out on the other side with another rope.
Meanwhile, the Hawk was lurching sideways and bounding up and down in a most terrific manner, lifting the car at each leap and pounding it on the surface of the ground.
Fortunately for Matt and his friends, Jerrold and his assistant, Payne, were close by, making the fastenings of their own air ship secure. They rushed to the assistance of Carl and Ferral, and succeeded, between all four of them, in getting the mooring ropes in place.
Jerrold thereupon brought four more ropes from his workshop, and the Hawk was likewise lashed with these. Matt's canvas shelter was then brought out, unfolded and put in place over the gas bag.
This task had no sooner been completed than the rain began to come down in torrents. Thankful that they had reached a safe haven in the very nick of time, Helen, Brady and Matt and his friends went into Jerrold's house and watched the rain pouring from the windows.