The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

118 raised and swung from this limb, I de- cided. Once there, my lady could take refuge in it from two-footed beasts as well as four, if such there were in the vicinity. I set about to put my plan into effect. Brute Flanagan, content to let others do the thinking for him, and satisfied, apparently, that after my beating I would make no attempt to start home that day, still slept peacefully by the fire. Miss Norcross had taken temporary shelter in the overturned car, as if afraid to wander any great distance from the one link that bound her to home and her father. I walked over to her and told her of my scheme. She brightened at once, both, I think, at the promise it held of tem- porary security and because it meant action. I partly lifted the car and saw that I would have no trouble in carrying it or rolling it, at least, to the big oak. Then I examined the deflated bag. The cords which netted it were brought together and made fast to a wooden ring, called the gathering-ring, to which, in turn, were secured heavier ropes leading up the sides of the car from rings in the bottom of it. With the help of the deft fingers of the girl, I unwove several of these heavier cables and knotted them together into a line that I could throw over the limb of the oak and hoist my car aloft with. It now remained to construct a rope ladder that Miss Norcross could raise or lower as the occasion required, gain access to her nest, and prevent others from doing so. This I made from the smaller netting of the balloon. So far so good, but she needed pro- tection from the elements as well, and now I proposed.an attack on the balloon fabric itself. _ She hesitated at this. It was not a valuable bag, being made of prepared cotton and not of silk, but it was all her father owned, and she still had hopes that it would be possible to leave it intact THE ARGOSY. on the chance that it could be brought out on a pack-horse. ‘But then,” she said bravely, “‘ here am I, wearing your coat and leaving you without protection from the cold, when this poor balloon, which will probably never be of use again, could furnish us with shelter and clothing.” ‘““ Nonsense,” I _ protested. thinking only of you.” ‘Do you know,” she observed gently, her dark eyes on mine, “‘ you usually are thinking only—of me.” I could feel“myself reddening at this. The anxiety, the labor, even the beating { had received at the hands of Brute Flanagan, were paid for by these few words. “It is no more than any man would have done,” I murmured confusedly. She shrugged her shoulders and looked significantly in the direction of the fire where Brute Flanagan still slept. I followed her glance. “Let me hang your nest before he awakens,” I said. But before we did that she insisted that we take cloth from the balloon, and with my knife she ripped a length from the top to the bottom of the bag. The big oak was a hundred yards away, but, as I had anticipated, we had little difficulty in rolling and dragging the car to its foot. I threw a coil of rope over the extended limb and together we swayed on it. To my great satisfaction, the weight of ¢ 1 =syas two of us was sufficient to send the car ” easily aloft. Once more it swung in its element, well above the reach of the tallest man, the rope ladder dangling underneath. I made the end of the hauling-line fast to the trunk of the oak and started aloft to secure the basket to the limb so that its fastenings could not be reached from the ground. I had seen circus acrobats climb rope ladders, and it had always appeared to be a perfectly simple feat. I found on ex- periment that it was anything but that. At last, however, with Miss Norcross CORMICLO® S (C@