V.
"Look! For God's sake, look! What is it?"
Swift strained his eyes to the southward, toward the death-boundterritory. The malignant cloud that settled over plain and mountainslope was broken on the Gopher lake. As soon as Swift had recovered fromthe first bound of the balloon he had scanned the dark mist, and by theborders of the lake he had found a rift. This rift indicated the spotwhere the city of Russell should have been. As he spoke he clutched thearm of his colleague, and pointed over the side of the rising car.
"I--I'm afraid I can't see what you mean," stammered Mr. Statis Ticks,"my glasses are blurred."
The man of figures was really agitated. But Professor Ariel, like manyan adventurer, had more than his share of what one may politely callsang-froid, but what is known in common North American as simple"cheek." Besides, in some sections of the country, he might have beencalled a profane man. With his hands on the safety valve, he looked andthen ejaculated:
"By ----. It's gone!"
"I see nothing--nothing but black streaks," said the elder member of the_Planet_ corps hurriedly. "Can't we stop, professor? Perhaps that isn'tthe site of the unfortunate city!"
The professor, obedient to the suggestion, pulled the safety valve, andthe gas rushed out with a wheeze.
"You bet it is! That's the place! Didn't I land there before I struckEmpiria? Darned lucky for me they didn't take stock in the _HighTariff_. I might have been--God knows what, now!"
Even as the three men looked, the cloud closed in upon the land.Strangely enough, it shunned the surface of the water. The travellerscast their eyes upon the sullen bosom of the Gopher lake. This body ofwater glittered like the scales of a leaden serpent. It looked from thatgreat height poisonous and discontented. Swift gazed upon it intently.
"Why? Wouldn't they have you?" inquired Mr. Ticks, absent-mindedly ofthe professor. "See! Haven't we struck another current?"
As he spoke the huge _High Tariff_ swayed. A breath of chilly air smotethem. Then gently the balloon swung toward the Gopher lake--toward thefateful city.
"Well, you see, the balloon was too old-fashioned for them," answeredthe professor, still bent upon his grievance. "Now, if it had gone byelectricity that 'ud been another thing."
"How so?" asked Mr. Ticks, with polite interest.
"Well! Everything in that gol-darned town went by electricity. They hadelectric cars, electric lights, electric shampooing, electric cigars,electric sewing machines, electric elevators, electric table service inthe hotel; worst was, they had electric cabs. They kept quiet about someof their notions. Folks did say they had their reasons. I didn't hearnothing about all this electric tomfoolery till I struck the city."
"Ah!" interrupted Mr. Ticks, pricking up his ears. "I have heard aboutthose cabs, but I have had no reliable information that they were asuccess."
"They ain't!" answered the professor, rubbing his right arm with a winceof memory. "Like a darn jack I took one for a spin. They go on threewheels; one in front, two behind. The driver, he sits in front andsteers the shebang with the forward wheel. I hadn't gone two blocks whenI leaned out of the window and the current struck me in the arm like ashot. You bet I yelled bloody murder and got out of that trap in twoshakes of a colt's tail."
"How does all that electrical system work otherwise?" asked Mr. Ticksslowly, after some thought.
"Everybody perfectly wild over it. They won't allow a horse in town, noreven a ton of coal. Electricity is the big thing of the future. Theyfight electrical duels. Feller that stands the greatest number ofalternating volts gets the apology. I saw a dog-fight in the streetstopped by the Humane Society. A man would drop a wet sponge on thedog's head, another on his back, and turn on the circuit. They generallyboth dropped and never knew what struck 'em. Two dead dogs better thanone fight. But they kept it all dark enough. These were jestexperiments, they said. When they were done that they were going to havean electrical exhibition and invite the hull world. Why, I heard theywere fool enough to put in a bill in the Legislature to have the name ofRussell changed to Electra. As if Russell wasn't good enough for them!"
Mr. Ticks mused over these facts. Why was it that his acquisitive mindhad not roamed over this field before? Perhaps because it wasacquisitive, not imaginative. _He_ could only account for theunpardonable omission on the ground that there were so many newcompeting Western cities, each with its peculiar advantages: and thatthere were so many strange electrical inventions new each day, that hehad overlooked Russell and its progressive hobby. Besides, was he not onthe staff of a Democratic paper, which would, perhaps, on the whole,prefer to ignore the new Republican State and its flourishing capital.
"How was all this power produced if coal was excluded?" asked Mr. Ticks.
"Oh, windmills did that. A half a dozen huge windmills, with wings, eachas big as the _High Tariff_, were the first things you saw. They werenearly three hundred feet high----"
"Good Heavens! Look, man! Look down there! Don't you see something inthe middle of the lake!" Swift pulled the professor over to his side ofthe car, and pointed directly below the balloon.
They had now struck a dead calm and the _High Tariff_ floated motionlesstwo thousand feet above the lake. Directly below them was somethingresting upon the waters. It looked fixed and dead. A log? A wreck? Araft? Slowly the outline took to itself the form of a boat.
"Have you a pair of glasses here?" asked Swift, all of a quiver.
The professor shoved one of Steward's field-glasses in his hand.
"There's a body in that boat!" cried Swift, after a prolongedexamination. "No--Great God! It's alive! It moves! It's a _woman_!"
The professor took a long look.
"I guess you're right. She's a female!"
"But she must be saved," insisted Swift. "We must save her."
"Yes, Professor Ariel," said Mr. Statis Ticks, sententiously and withtrembling dignity; "being a woman, she demands our attention, and,besides, as a survivor she can give us the information and suggest thefigures we need."
"I'll do my best, gentlemen," said the professor, shaking, his head,"but it's mighty ticklish business. Supposing we drift into the deadlyair. I don't know what that vapor means, but it evidently means the'Sweet By and By.' Even the _High Tariff_ wouldn't save us then!"
"Look here, professor," jerked out Swift, peremptorily, "it's got to bedone. Now dry up!"
"All right, it's a go. I can stand it if you can."
So the valve was opened cautiously, and the balloon with majesticslowness, obedient to its master's hand, descended toward the GreatGopher lake, and hovered over the cockle-shell upon its malignantbosom.
As the _High Tariff_ approached the little boat, Mr. Ticks looked at iteagerly.
"She's alive and unmarried," said the oracle, slowly.
"Why unmarried?" asked Swift, with a vague flutter of the heart. He hadwatched the figure of the woman attentively with the spyglass. It wasrounded and supple. Masses of dark-brown hair hid her shoulders andface.
"Because," answered Mr. Ticks, "she is under eighteen. The statistics ofthis section of the West show that no female over eighteen years of ageremains 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. Butthe three men agreed they had seen her move. Had her rescuers arrivedtoo 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 anddown a rope ladder swinging in space, he clambered over the side of thecar.
"Hold, young fellow!" Professor Ariel spoke sharply. By this time theywere within two hundred feet of the water.
"Hold, I say!" yelled the professor in a rage, letting go the rope tothe safety-valve and at the same time, grabbing a sand-bag. "If you stirout of this car I'll pitch ballast out and you'll never see your galagain!"
Swift stopped short. The
rope-ladder swayed like a double snake beneaththem. Its end was fifty feet above the boat, but, O horrors! It was alsonearly fifty feet to one side of the boat--no human power could reachthe lady from the ladder. A breath might blow the _High Tariff_ evenfarther away.
At the same time the girl, doubtless aroused from her stupor by theprofessor's loud call, opened her eyes slowly. Above her loomed agigantic monster. Was it a dream? Was this apparition a final terroradded to her awful experience, sent to crush out the last remnant of herbuoyant 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 resultof full Western tracheal development.
"Oh! don't be frightened!" cried Swift quickly, "Don't! We've come tosave you!" He could not think of anything more to say; and it occurredto him that he was a donkey to say anything.
But the professor, who had few delicate scruples, waved his hat andshouted:
"What's the matter with the _High Tariff_? She's all right!"
This yell, so frequently heard on Eastern land and sea, had penetratedeven to the Great Gopher lake, and it reassured the girl more thananything else could have done.
She sat up weakly enough in the boat, and, after waving her hand, withfeminine instinct tried to coil her hair and otherwise prepare herselfas 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 longsuffering.
The professor coiled a stout, light rope on his arm, shot out a fewthundering orders about safety-valves and ballast, and cautiously, butwith gymnastic quickness, descended the yielding rounds of the longladder.
To the lady in the boat, to the passengers in the car it seemed hoursbefore the professor reached the last of the two hundred rounds. Itmight 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 tremblingvoice seemed to lay an actual emphasis on "you" that Swift was selfishenough 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 intohis eyes. Even Mr. Ticks blinked.
"She's office editor on some Russell daily," said Mr. Ticks afteranother long look through the field glasses.
"How do you know?" asked Swift in displeasure.
"She's got a stylograph behind her right ear and a yellow pad in herlap; 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. Itwhistled 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 careenedover slightly and righted itself. The _High Tariff_ was slowly settlingto the water's surface. As quickly as he could the professor pulled theboat toward him.
"You can't. It's anchored," cried the girl. She tugged at the rope withthe last strength of hope, and actually brought it up. The skiff yieldedto the professor's clutch. By this time the balloon was so low down thatthe aeronaut's feet were nearly in the water.
"Throw out sand by the handful!" he ordered. This gentle lighting kepther at the right elevation.
Now the professor touched the boat. He jumped in. "Don't talk!" hecried, "hold out your arms instead!" He knotted the rope underneath herarms and tied the other end firmly to the ladder.
"We've got to hurry. Now, Miss! you keep cool, and we'll save you allright." It was a desperate chance.
"Now let go a couple of sandbags!" the order came up to Swift in thecar.
Mr. Statis Ticks, with his hand upon the safety-valve, and hearing theorder, became, for the first time in his life, confused. He pulled thesafety-valve wide open, and the gas rushed furiously out. Even with thetwo sandbags overboard and lightened of fifty pounds dead weight, theballoon descended suddenly.
The professor saw the mistake at a glance. He yelled furiously:
"Good God! Close that valve or we're lost!"
But the mischief was already done.
"Heave it all out!" shrieked the professor, climbing up the ladder likea cat. The car of the balloon grazed the side of the boat. Mr. StatisTicks, in such atonement as he could make for his awful error, reachedover his thin arms. The girl arose, tottering to her feet, and, with amighty 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 hecould have done. Under the influence of the added weight the car struckthe 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 thefloor, and the water was upon her. Above them was a cloud of thedarkness of night. Cirrhus clouds scudded here and there in confusion.There was strange atmospheric howling in the distance, approachingnearer and nearer. The water assumed that angry hue it takes to itselfbefore a desperate storm. The monstrous balloon writhed intelligentlyabove 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 overlike lightning, and we'll see," answered the professor, solemnly.