Part 11 (1/2)

”You are right!”

For a moment there was a doubt. Then the sticky stuff adhered to the silk bag, and the patch was made fast. A shout from Was.h.i.+ngton in the engine room told that the gas had ceased to rush out. Mark had succeeded.

Was.h.i.+ngton hastened to turn the gas generator to half speed. Before he could do so, however, there had been a great increase in the volume of vapor in the bag, caused by the sudden stopping off of the vent. Up shot the airs.h.i.+p, the acc.u.mulation of gas lifting it higher from the earth.

So suddenly did it shoot up, from having been almost at rest, that there was a tremor through the whole craft.

”Look out, Mark!” cried Jack. He looked up to where his comrade clung to the netting.

”Hold fast! We'll stop the s.h.i.+p in a second,” exclaimed the captain.

But it was too late. The sudden rising of the craft had shaken Mark's hold, which was not of the best at any time, since the gas bag was a yielding surface to lean against.

The next instant the boy, vainly clutching the air for some sort of grip for his hands, toppled over backward. His feet slid from the meshes of the net, and he plunged downward toward the earth, more than a mile below!

CHAPTER IX

THE FROZEN NORTH REACHED

”He'll be killed!” shouted Jack.

”He's a goner!” yelled Was.h.i.+ngton, looking up from the engine room window.

The old professor groaned and shut his eyes. He did not want to see the boy fall.

Bill and Tom, with old Andy Sudds, had been watching Mark at his perilous task, standing directly beneath him. Andy was the closer. He leaned quickly backward when he saw what had happened.

Mark's body, turning over in its descent, was at the s.h.i.+p's side. Out shot the hands of the old hunter. His fingers were curved like the talons of an eagle. The long arms seemed to reach a great distance, and then, just as it seemed that Mark would plunge downward to his death, Andy grasped and held him.

”There!” exclaimed the hunter. ”That was a close call, my boy!”

Mark did not answer. The fearful danger he had been saved from had so frightened him that he became partially unconscious.

”Is he dead?” faltered Jack.

”He has only fainted,” answered Amos Henderson. ”I'll soon bring him around.”

The inventor hurried into the cabin and came out with some liquid in a gla.s.s. This he placed to Mark's lips and soon the color came back into the pale cheeks.

”What happened? Where am I?” asked the boy, sitting up and looking around.

”You're all right,” answered Andy. ”It was a close call though. I reckon you won't want to mend any more airs.h.i.+ps right away.”

”I remember now,” went on Mark, who had been dazed by the suddenness of it all. ”I fell, didn't I?”

”Yes, and Andy caught you,” put in Jack. ”He was just in time.”

Mark said nothing, but the fervor with which he shook the old hunter by the hand showed how deep his feeling was.

In a little while the fright and excitement caused by the accident had pa.s.sed over. The s.h.i.+p now rode evenly and neither rose nor fell, in consequence of the gas supply in the bag remaining the same, there being no leak. The patch Mark had put on fitted so closely that there was not the least escape of gas now.