Rocky Mountain Sam — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

84 ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. ever, when Sam suddenly let fly with his lariat, and the run- ning noose caught him around the body, pinioning his arms to his side, and jerking him from the saddle in an instant. But almost at the same moment one of his followers drew his knife and severed the thong above the noose, thus setting him free, though considerably the worse for his tumble. “‘Tt.is useless,” cried the professor. ‘‘It will be all we can do to cross the mountains in ourgresent crippled condition. Overboard with all the ballast we have!” It was only too evident that he spoke the truth, for the gas-bag was growing flabbier and losing more gas every mo- ment; so Sam began to throw over the sand-bags, one after another, as fast as he could; while poor little Fayaway again sobbed as if her heart would break, as she saw the sad, despairing expression of Miss Chapman’s upturned face. Beside the ballast, they had to throw overboard the car- cass of the deer and many of the guns and other weapons that had been captured before the disabled balloon was suf- ficiently lightened to reach the proper air-current, and then they began to drift slowly northward over the mountain chain. It was the middle of the afternoon before they settled. down slowly and feebly into the little canon which Max had spoken of, and whose supply of gas was exceedingly limited, comprising only four or five thin jets of vapor, which issued faintly enough from as many fissures, and there were no traces of mud-volcanoes, geysers, or other evidences of violent volcanic action. | In a few moments the great balloon lay supine and empty upon its side; and its owner, after going over every square foot of it with the utmost care, exclaimed, joyously: “Why, there are only half a dozen bullet-holes, Sam; and, thanks to the quilting ‘process’ of stitching I spoke to you of, these are small and can be mended with very little diffi- culty. Now, while Fayaway is cooking us something to eat I will get my needle and thread, cloth and varnish, and set to work at once. You see, we are all so thoroughly used up by what we've gone through that we will want a long night’s rest to recuperate.” ‘““‘No meat to cookie,” said Fayaway. ‘‘Deer all gone away; dry meat, no more.” ‘““And I had forgotten that we threw our carcass of ven- ison overboard,” said the professor, who was now nosing com 7 4 Py 900ks.co! mn