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Then the men harnessed themselves two by two on the drag-rope, while one of their number pried behind with a lever, and the canoe, bumping and sliding, was twitched through the woods. Over the sandstone flats there were some ugly ledges, but on the whole the course was down-hill and relatively easy.
There was no more shouting of directions now, not a single loud word was spoken, the oarsman rowed with a steady funereal rhythm, while Ben Towle, who had held the drag-rope, now held half out of water the recovered corpse. Albert leaned forward anxiously to see the face of Katy, but it was Jane Downing, the girl who was drowned first.
By five o'clock it became light enough to note the time and that they were travelling in a south-westerly direction exactly contrary to their course of the evening before. At seven o'clock the balloon was moored to a limb, and its passengers, climbing down the drag-rope, made their way to a railroad-cutting which they had noticed while aloft.
Ranse walked out toward the jacals. A boy came running. "Manuel, can you catch Vaminos, in the little pasture, for me?" "Why not, señor? I saw him near the puerta but two hours past. He bears a drag-rope." "Get him and saddle him as quick as you can." "Prontito, señor."
As the circle of the net diminished and the evidences, above referred to, of life in the water became more frequent, gleeful expectation took the place of wonder, and a disposition to chatter manifested itself, especially among the women and children, who by that time had eagerly laid hold of the drag-rope.
He lighted the lantern and sat down on the steps waiting for the boy. From the corral back of the store came the sound of trampling hoofs and an occasional word from Young Pete, who seemed to be a long time at the simple task of untying a drag-rope. The store-keeper grew suspicious and finally strode back to the corral.
George wanted to take the drag-rope himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those in charge of the boat from giving it to him. When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the whole village flocked to the lake shore.
Readily realising that after such a grim ordeal would almost certainly come a powerful revulsion, his first aim was to swing the stranger far enough away from the whirlpool to give him a fair chance for life, in case he should fall, through dizziness or physical collapse, from the end of the drag-rope.
The weary and anxious watchers were thus kept in suspense for nearly half an hour, when suddenly there broke through the fog ahead the welcome outlines of a forest-shore, and in a moment more the drag-rope had lifted them above the tree-tops.
Gas-bag, netting, concentrating-ring, basket, valve, anchor, drag-rope and exploding cord, what has the century of ballooning added to its essentials? how can coming centuries improve this perfection of simplicity? Aërial navigation is altogether another thing.
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