Bound To Succeed Part 5

Frank had kept on going without looking ahead. The momentary distraction had its result.

Too late he turned the handle bars of the bicycle and set the brake.

b.u.mp! the machine struck a jagged tree stump, and Frank Newton took a header.

CHAPTER V

THE BALLOONIST'S RESCUE

There was a sharp bang as the bicycle struck the tree stump. Frank righted himself readily and ran to the machine where it had fallen.

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "tire punctured and the wheel a pretty bad wreck generally."

This was true. A jagged sliver had ripped a hole in both the outer and inner tubes of the front wheel. The hard bang against the tree stump had twisted several spokes out of place and set a rim wobbling.

Frank had started in such a hurry from Riverton that morning that he had not thought of taking his mending kit along. He debated what he should do without further loss of time.

"I might carry it," he reflected. "If I try to run it, I will loosen it up more and lose some of the parts. Guess I'll leave it here, get my message to Mr. Buckner, stop at the house for my tool kit, and fix the machine up right here. This way, my staunch and trusty friend," he hailed to Christmas. "Watch it, old fellow, watch it," said Frank to the dog, placing his hand on the wheel.

Christmas looked longingly after his young master as Frank started on foot for Greenville. However, the animal posed right alongside the bicycle. Frank knew that it would take a loaded cannon to drive the trusty canine from the vicinity of his charge until he himself reappeared and gave the word.

It was just one o'clock when Frank, a trifle dusty and footsore, entered the office of Mr. Buckner.

"Well, well, good for you, Frank," commended the insurance man, as he glanced at the clock and then at his visitor's beaming face. "Of course you succeeded?"

"I did," admitted Frank, a little proudly, "but there was a tangle."

"Ah, indeed?"

"Yes, sir. Dorsett was on the spot. There is the receipt. I had to climb for it."

"What do you mean?"

Frank told of the circ.u.mstances of his exploit at Mr. Pryor's office at Riverton. Mr. Buckner lay back in his chair chuckling and laughing. Then he got up and clapped Frank approvingly on the shoulder with one hand, and with the other extended a crisp new five-dollar bill.

"I am glad to get this," said Frank, "but I have hardly earned so much, I think."

"What! when you saved the day by your nimbleness and square common sense? See here, Frank, I'm mightily pleased with you, and if you will drop in here to-morrow I think I can put you in the way of earning a few more of those precious notes."

Frank bowed his thanks and left the office with a light heart. He went straight home, entered the house quietly, and actually startled his mother by silently dropping the five-dollar bill on the book in her lap.

Mrs. Ismond shared her son's pleasure when Frank recited his brisk experiences of the morning. He ate a good lunch with appetizing vigor, secured his bicycle repair kit, and was soon down the road, whistling cheerily all the way to the big woods.

As Frank neared the spot where he had left Christmas and the bicycle, he was greeted with loud and repeated barking.

"That's strange," he mused. "Christmas isn't given to such demonstrations when on duty. Some one must have come in sight or hearing. Hey, old fellow, what's all this rumpus?" questioned Frank, as, emerging from a copse, he came in full view of the dog.

Christmas was running up and down in front of the bicycle. He would face in a certain direction and pose and bark. He even ran up to his master as Frank approached, and seizing his coat in his teeth gently but resolutely pulled him in the direction he had pointed.

"He means something by all this," declared Frank. "Go ahead," he ordered.

Christmas, thus advised, bounded forward among some big trees. Frank, coming up with him after a jaunt of about three hundred feet, found him squatted on his haunches under a giant oak tree, looking up among its branches. Frank looked up, too. A moving object attracted his attention.

"Why," said Frank, staring fixedly, "it's a balloon."

This he discerned beyond question. He could plainly make out its slack rigging. An ungainly, half-distended gas bag was wobbling about in the topmost branches of the tree. Lower down, turned sideways and partly smashed in, was a big wicker basket.

"It must be the balloon that little ragged fellow told about, the same one that I saw when I took that header from the bicycle," decided Frank. "There couldn't have been any one in it. Oh, say--but there was, Mercy!" and Frank gave a violent start and quick gasp. He stood transfixed with a sudden thrilling emotion akin to terror.

His eye sweeping the tree expanse keenly, he now made out, lying across two limbs about thirty feet from the ground, a human figure.

This form was motionless, and bent the branches considerably. As the breeze stirred them, they rocked like a cradle.

Frank guessed out the situation instantly. The balloon had driven or dropped into the tree top, shattering the cage and tipping out its pilot.

The latter had sustained a twenty-foot fall, striking some big branches with enough force to stun him. He had landed on his present frail perch.

Frank's heart almost stood still as he realized that a single waking moment, a treacherous shifting of the wind, might precipitate the imperilled balloonist to the ground with a broken neck.

Frank's nerves were on a hard strain, but he grew composed as he decided what he would do. He motioned the dog to silence, and at once started to climb the tree.

He kept his eye on the swaying figure overhead all the time. At length Frank reached a big crotched branch shooting out from the main trunk not four feet under that which sustained the unconscious balloonist.

Frank braced his feet across the crotch. He took a great, long breath of relief and satisfaction, for he found himself now so situated that if the man should stir or slip from his insecure resting place, he could r.e.t.a.r.d his fall.

Frank had, upon leaving home, placed a long coil of rope in his coat pocket. This he intended to use to tie up the bicycle in case he found it necessary to take it home to repair it. He now used this to form a criss-cross sort of a hammock directly under the two branches supporting the balloonist.

"There," said Frank finally, feeling he had the man in right shape at last. "If he drops, that contrivance will hold him like a net."

The youth rested for a few minutes, for it had been no easy task to slip the rope around the two branches and secure it stoutly. When he again stood up, he moved along his footing so that his face was on a level with the strange bed of the balloonist.

The latter lay sunk down among bending twigs like a person in a hammock.

His face was bloodless, and over one temple was a great lump. That was probably where a heavy branch had struck and stunned him.

The stranger was fairly well-dressed, and he had intelligent features.

For all this, however, there was a careless, easy-going look about him.

He did not at all suggest to Frank the quick-witted, nerve-strained typical aeronaut.

Frank made his footing very sure, braced firmly, and with one hand took a stout grasp under the sleeper's collar.

"Wake up--wake up," he called directly in his ear.

The man stirred faintly, only. Frank continued to call out to him. He also with his other hand slapped his chest, his cheeks, his outstretched palms.

Finally with a deep groan the man opened his eyes wide suddenly. He stared and mumbled and tried to start up, but Frank held him flat.