"Easy, mister, now," warned Frank gently. "Take time to find out the fix you are in. Then let me help you to the ground."
"Help me--why, ginger! I understand," exclaimed the balloonist.
He lay back weakly, staring at Frank, then all about him, and finally up at the gas bag flopping about in the upper branches of the tree top.
"I remember now," he went on in a drawling, reminiscent tone. "It was a quick drop. Valve blew out. A regular smash when we landed. She"s a wreck, isn"t she? And say," and the man glancing sideways downward shuddered, "if I had gone the full header it would have been all day with me, eh?"
Frank nodded. Briefly he explained how he had come to discover the refugee"s plight. He helped the man to sit up, guiding and a.s.sisting him. The latter came slowly out of his maze of bewilderment, and looked grateful.
"You"ve saved me, I guess," he observed. "One move or slip, and I"d have gone shooting down the rest of the way."
"When you are ready, let me help you to the ground," suggested Frank.
"Oh, I"m all right now. Just a little shaking up," a.s.sured the man. "No, no, don"t you worry. I"m at home among trapezes."
The balloonist extricated himself successfully from the swaying branches and poised in a crotch nearer to the main trunk of the tree.
"Just a minute," he said, deftly going up the tree, clambering over the shattered basket and reaching up.
There was a great hiss and a dense taint of escaping gas in the air as he operated some valve in the mechanism of the balloon. The gas bag dropped gracefully to a ma.s.s of silken and rubber folds.
Then the man started to descend, Frank preceding him. Both reached the ground in safety. The balloonist took an approving look at Frank, patted Christmas and began arranging his disordered attire.
"What are you going to do next?" asked Frank, after his companion had walked around the tree two or three times, viewing its top speculatively the while, and whistling softly to himself.
"Well, the bag is safe for a time. I guess I"d better get to the nearest town and telegraph the boss. It will be a job getting the balloon out of that fix without further damage."
"If you will rest a bit till I fix up a broken bicycle I have over yonder, I will pilot you to Greenville," said Frank.
"Good for you," commended the man, and he followed Frank to the spot where the wheel lay.
Frank set at work on the damaged bicycle. He now had the necessary tools and material at hand to fix it up. At the end of ten minutes he had the wheel in safe shape to roll it home, where he could repair it more permanently.
Meantime his companion rattled on volubly. He told Frank his name was Park Gregson. He was a sort of a "knockaround." He had been with a circus, had fought Indians, had been major in the South African War, had circ.u.mnavigated the globe twice, in fact, a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none for over fifteen years.
"That balloon," he explained, "belongs to a professional aeronaut. He hired me to help him. She"s a new one, that yonder. I was making a trial cruise. Professor Balmer, who owns her, is at Circleville. As I say, I must wire him to come and get her on her feet again."
"You mean her wings?" suggested Frank.
"Exactly. Ready? No, you needn"t help me, I"m only a trifle bruised and stiff."
Frank led the way townwards. He stopped at the house to put his bicycle away. Then he accompanied his companion to the railroad depot. Here Park Gregson wrote out a telegram and handed it to the operator.
"Expect an answer," he observed. "I"ll call for it. No, send it to me. I say, Newton," he addressed Frank with friendly familiarity, "where"s the best place to put up till the professor reports himself?"
"There"s a fairly good hotel here," said Frank.
Gregson looked a trifle embarra.s.sed for an instant. Then he laughed, saying.
"They"ll have to take me in penniless till the professor arrives."
"That will be all right," declared Frank. "I"ll vouch for you. But say, if you would be our guest at home, you will be very welcome."
"And I will be very delighted to have your most entertaining company,"
instantly replied Gregson. "I"ll make it all right when the boss comes."
Frank was glad to offer this hospitality to his new chance acquaintance.
The man interested him. Everything he talked about he covered in a vivid way that made his descriptions instructive. Already he had suggested some points to Frank that had set the latter thinking in new directions.
The wide experience of the man was suggestive and valuable to Frank.
Park Gregson asked the telegraph operator to send any reply to his message to the Newton home, and accompanied Frank there.
As they neared the cottage a man in a gig came driving down the road. It was Dorsett.
He glared fiercely at Frank, and then bestowed an inquisitive, suspicious look upon the stranger.
Frank introduced Gregson to his mother, who prepared a lunch for him.
Gregson was more shaken up than he had expressed, and was glad to lie down and rest in the neatly-furnished spare room of the cottage.
Frank had some odd ch.o.r.es to do about the village. When he came home again about six o"clock he found Gregson refreshed-looking and comfortably seated in the parlor reading a book.
They had a pleasant time at the supper table. Then they adjourned to the cozy little sitting-room. Christmas was allowed to stay in the house, and seemed to enjoy the animated ways of the balloonist as much as the others.
Park Gregson fairly fascinated them with the story of his travels and adventures in many countries.
"You see, I have been quite a rolling stone, Mrs. Ismond," he said. "A harmless one, though."
"Have you never thought of settling down to some regular occupation, sir?" suggested Frank"s mother.
"It"s not in me, madam, I fear," declared the knockaround. "I did try it once, for a fact. Yes, I actually went into business."
"What was the line, Mr. Gregson?" asked Frank.
"Mail order business."
Frank showed by the expression of his face that the balloonist had struck a theme of great interest to him.
"I had a partner," went on Gregson. "We advertised and sold sets of rubber finger tips to protect the hands of housewives when working about the house."
"Was it a success?" inquired Frank.
"It was great--famous. The orders just rolled in. We made money hand over fist and spent it like water. One day, though, there came a stop to it all. A lawyer served an injunction on us. It seemed that the device was a French invention patented in this country. My partner sloped with most of the funds, leaving me stranded. All the same, it"s a great business--the mail order line."
For over an hour Frank kept their guest busy answering a hundred earnest questions as to all the details of the mail order business.
When Gregson had retired for the night Frank sat silent and thoughtful in the company of his mother. Finally he said.
"Mother, Mr. Gregson"s talk has done me a lot of good."