A Republic Without a President and Other Stories Part 9

As the _High Tariff_ approached the little boat, Mr. Ticks looked at it eagerly.

"She's alive and unmarried," said the oracle, slowly.

"Why unmarried?" asked Swift, with a vague flutter of the heart. He had watched the figure of the woman attentively with the spygla.s.s. It was rounded and supple. Ma.s.ses of dark-brown hair hid her shoulders and face.

"Because," answered Mr. Ticks, "she is under eighteen. The statistics of this section of the West show that no female over eighteen years of age remains single."

The balloon had now descended to within three hundred feet of the boat.

The girl in it did not stir. She lay with her head propped in the bow, so stiffly and so still that to all appearance she was a dead woman. But the three men agreed they had seen her move. Had her rescuers arrived too late?

"Let down the ladder!" cried Swift. "I'll go down and pick her up!"

Ignorant how hard it is even for an experienced hand to climb up and down a rope ladder swinging in s.p.a.ce, he clambered over the side of the car.

"Hold, young fellow!" Professor Ariel spoke sharply. By this time they were within two hundred feet of the water.

"Hold, I say!" yelled the professor in a rage, letting go the rope to the safety-valve and at the same time, grabbing a sand-bag. "If you stir out of this car I'll pitch ballast out and you'll never see your gal again!"

Swift stopped short. The rope-ladder swayed like a double snake beneath them. Its end was fifty feet above the boat, but, O horrors! It was also nearly fifty feet to one side of the boat--no human power could reach the lady from the ladder. A breath might blow the _High Tariff_ even farther away.

At the same time the girl, doubtless aroused from her stupor by the professor's loud call, opened her eyes slowly. Above her loomed a gigantic monster. Was it a dream? Was this apparition a final terror added to her awful experience, sent to crush out the last remnant of her buoyant life and magnificent courage? She stared at the thing above her; then opened her mouth and gave a scream, such as can only be the result of full Western tracheal development.

"Oh! don't be frightened!" cried Swift quickly, "Don't! We've come to save you!" He could not think of anything more to say; and it occurred to him that he was a donkey to say anything.

But the professor, who had few delicate scruples, waved his hat and shouted:

"What's the matter with the _High Tariff_? She's all right!"

This yell, so frequently heard on Eastern land and sea, had penetrated even to the Great Gopher lake, and it rea.s.sured the girl more than anything else could have done.

She sat up weakly enough in the boat, and, after waving her hand, with feminine instinct tried to coil her hair and otherwise prepare herself as best she could to receive these angels from the clouds.

"Can you catch?" yelled the professor.

"Try me!" came back a voice undaunted, though enfeebled by long suffering.

The professor coiled a stout, light rope on his arm, shot out a few thundering orders about safety-valves and ballast, and cautiously, but with gymnastic quickness, descended the yielding rounds of the long ladder.

To the lady in the boat, to the pa.s.sengers in the car it seemed hours before the professor reached the last of the two hundred rounds. It might have been forty seconds.

Swift called out to the young lady encouragingly:

"Hold out a little while longer and you'll be safe!"

"I'm all right now, since you have come." The young woman's trembling voice seemed to lay an actual emphasis on "you" that Swift was selfish enough to take to himself.

"How long have you been there?"

"Five days. I am nearly dead!"

"Poor, poor thing!" said Swift to himself. Tears of sympathy came into his eyes. Even Mr. Ticks blinked.

"She's office editor on some Russell daily," said Mr. Ticks after another long look through the field gla.s.ses.

"How do you know?" asked Swift in displeasure.

"She's got a stylograph behind her right ear and a yellow pad in her lap; besides, there are some clippings at the bottom of the boat."

By this time Professor Ariel had reached the lower end of his ladder.

"Now, catch!" he cried, hurling the light rope with sure skill. It whistled through the air and the end fell across the boat.

"Make fast to something, quick, now!"

As he spoke he felt a breath of air upon his face. The balloon careened over slightly and righted itself. The _High Tariff_ was slowly settling to the water's surface. As quickly as he could the professor pulled the boat toward him.

"You can't. It's anch.o.r.ed," cried the girl. She tugged at the rope with the last strength of hope, and actually brought it up. The skiff yielded to the professor's clutch. By this time the balloon was so low down that the aeronaut's feet were nearly in the water.

"Throw out sand by the handful!" he ordered. This gentle lighting kept her at the right elevation.

Now the professor touched the boat. He jumped in. "Don't talk!" he cried, "hold out your arms instead!" He knotted the rope underneath her arms and tied the other end firmly to the ladder.

"We've got to hurry. Now, Miss! you keep cool, and we'll save you all right." It was a desperate chance.

"Now let go a couple of sandbags!" the order came up to Swift in the car.

Mr. Statis Ticks, with his hand upon the safety-valve, and hearing the order, became, for the first time in his life, confused. He pulled the safety-valve wide open, and the gas rushed furiously out. Even with the two sandbags overboard and lightened of fifty pounds dead weight, the balloon descended suddenly.

The professor saw the mistake at a glance. He yelled furiously:

"Good G.o.d! Close that valve or we're lost!"

But the mischief was already done.

"Heave it all out!" shrieked the professor, climbing up the ladder like a cat. The car of the balloon grazed the side of the boat. Mr. Statis Ticks, in such atonement as he could make for his awful error, reached over his thin arms. The girl arose, tottering to her feet, and, with a mighty effort, the gray, gaunt man lifted the heavy girl into the car.

That was the most humane, and, at the same time, the maddest thing he could have done. Under the influence of the added weight the car struck the boat, over-turned it, and then dragged in the water.

"Out with everything!" howled the professor.

The three looked around in despair. The girl had dropped limp upon the floor, and the water was upon her. Above them was a cloud of the darkness of night. Cirrhus clouds scudded here and there in confusion.

There was strange atmospheric howling in the distance, approaching nearer and nearer. The water a.s.sumed that angry hue it takes to itself before a desperate storm. The monstrous balloon writhed intelligently above them. All the sandbags were now pitched out. The _High Tariff_ shook itself loose from the water. It rose. It fell. It rose again.

"Are we safe?" cried Swift, looking anxiously at the girl.

"Take off your coat and vest and shoes, everything, and chuck 'em over like lightning, and we'll see," answered the professor, solemnly.