Joe Strong and his wings of steel

“The balloon is loose! The balloon is loose!”

Thus cried the crowd, but it was a needless cry, for every one could see that the balloon was shooting upward.

The man who had intended going up in the basket, as well as his assistant, made frantic grabs for the car, but it was beyond their reach in an instant.

Those watching saw one woman attempt to throw herself over the side of the basket, but a man pulled her back.

“Keep still! Stay in the basket! You’ll be all right!” cried the balloon man. “She’ll come down some time!”

“Yes, but when?” asked a frenzied woman. “My daughter is in that balloon! She’ll be killed!”

“No, she won’t! They’ll be all right,” said the owner of the big bag. “If they will only open the valve and let out some of the gas they’ll come down quicker.”

“Then tell ’em what to do!” cried some one in the crowd.

The man made a trumpet of his hands, and yelled:

“Pull on the white cord. Pull a little at a time. That will open the valve and let the gas out slowly, then you’ll come down. But don’t pull the red cord!”

“They can’t hear you,” said Joe. “Yell louder.”

“Get a megaphone,” some one advised.

“Here, make one out of a newspaper,” a man cried. He rolled a paper into the form of a cone, tore off one end to make a place for the mouth, and handed it to the balloon man.

“Pull on the white cord, but not on the red!” shouted the aeronaut, directing the improvised megaphone toward the balloon, which was now far up in the air.

“Why not on the red cord?” asked a young man.

“That’s the ripping cord,” the balloonist explained in a low voice. “If they pull that it will tear a section out of the silk bag, and the balloon will come down with a rush.”

“Oh, anything to get it down!” begged the woman who had said her daughter was in the car. “Do anything to get it down!”

Joe Strong had a sudden inspiration. His wings of steel! Why could he not use them to fly after the escaping balloon? If he could not reach the valve cord himself, he could tell those in the balloon what to do.

He started on a rush toward the place where his machine was being charged.

“Is the battery ready?” he called to the electrician.

“Yes, all ready for a flight. But what’s the matter?”

“That balloon!” cried Joe. “It broke loose and there are men and women in it. I’m going up and tell them how to open the gas valve so they can get down.”

He did not have his football helmet with him, not being prepared for his flight, but he did not stop for that now. The balloon was slowly sailing upward. There being, fortunately, scarcely any wind currents, it was floating almost exactly above the circus tents.

“Can you fly that high?” asked the electrician, as he helped Joe get into the cage of the Bat, closing the supports about him.

“I think so,” the lad answered. “I’m going to try, anyhow!”

So much attention was centered on the runaway balloon that no one seemed aware of what the young circus performer was about to do save the electrician. Joe turned on the current and the big wings began to vibrate, moving faster and faster until the boy felt himself rising from the ground.

Joe had now a new feat to accomplish. He must rise higher than he had ever gone before, but he felt sure that he could do it. He gave a glance up at the drifting balloon, and he could dimly discern hands held out over the edge of the basket in an appeal for help.

Over at the place where the windlass had been stationed to haul the balloon back to earth, was gathered a crowd of excited men and women. Those who had friends or relatives in the runaway ship of the air were frantically begging that something be done. But the balloonist and his assistant could do nothing except to assure the imploring ones that the big bag would eventually come down, as the gas gradually escaped.

“Yes, but when it comes down my daughter may be dead!” cried a woman frantically.

“What else can I do?” asked the hectored balloonist. “I can not jump up in the air and pull down the balloon, much as I wish to. It was an unavoidable accident, I am sorry to say.”

“Why wasn’t your rope stronger?” demanded an indignant man.

“It was always strong enough before,” was the answer. “A very strong puff of wind must have come to cause the cable to break. I am sorry. I——”

“Look! Look!” some one shouted. “There goes the fellow who flies in the circus! Maybe he’s going up to bring down the balloon!”

“Oh, if he only can!” murmured the woman who had been weeping for her daughter.

The electrician, having assisted Joe, ran over to where the crowd was assembled. He heard what the woman said.

“Joe Strong will bring that balloon down if anybody can,” said the man who had charged Joe’s battery for him.

“Does he know anything about balloons?” eagerly asked the man who owned the runaway air craft.

“I guess so. Anyhow, he said if he could not open the valve himself he would call to those in the car and tell them how to do it.”

“Does he know which cord to pull?” went on the aeronaut. “If he tells them to pull the red one—the ripping cord—at that height the balloon will——”

And then he stopped. He saw the mother looking at him, and he dared not tell her that if the ripping cord was pulled the balloon would collapse from the sudden release of the gas and plunge too swiftly down. The ripping cord is only used when the balloon is close to the ground, to make a sudden landing to save going into the water or coming down on dangerous ground.

“I guess Joe Strong knows enough about balloons not to make a mistake,” the electrician said. “He planned the wings of steel, and any boy who can do that knows something about air craft. Leave it to Joe.”

Meanwhile Joe was soaring upward in the Bat. He guided his queer craft in as straight a course as he could toward the drifting balloon, and as he had the power of the wings to lift him, as well as the force of a slightly upward current of air, he was moving faster than the balloon.

For the first time since he had used the reconstructed Bat, Joe turned on the full current. The result surprised him, for he shot upward so suddenly and with such speed, that his breath was well-nigh taken from him.

“I’ve got to slow down a little,” the lad decided. He turned back the switch and the result was a better rate of movement. He was moving more slowly, but he was still moving at greater speed than the balloon, and he was sure he would eventually overtake it.

The young aeronaut gave no heed to himself. He did not think of his own danger; but that was like him, since he never gave a thought to what was below him in making his air trips.

Up and up he soared, steering, by means of the rudders operated by his feet, a slanting course. The balloon seemed to have reached a heavy stratum of air, through which it could not pass, and was now drifting along parallel to the plane of the earth’s surface—for though the earth is curved, the curve is so vast that it may be spoken of as a plane, as regards a certain limited extent.

Joe was now coming nearer to the runaway balloon. Now he could plainly make out the persons in it—five men and three women. They called to him, and held out their hands appealingly, but he could not hear what they said.

“I hope I can make them hear me above the noise my steel wings make,” thought the young aviator. “I can’t get into the balloon myself, that’s sure. If I had had a little more practice with my machine I might manage it, though, for it would be like getting from one moving automobile into another, once you had the speeds the same. But I guess I’d better call to them.”

Nearer and nearer he came to the floating balloon. Joe gave a look down. He was above some low-lying clouds, and it was the first time in his life he had been up so high. The feeling gave him no uneasiness, however, for, as has been said, Joe’s nerves were not of the sort that were affected by what, to others, would be dizzy heights.

The lad was now within a short distance of the balloon. He found that he was moving faster than the escaped bag, so he reduced the speed. This caused the wings to make less noise, and Joe could hear the men and the women calling to him for assistance.

“Save us!”

“Help us get down!”

“What shall we do?”

“Please listen to me!” cried Joe, making a megaphone of his hands, for they were not needed in steering. “Do you see two cords hanging down from up above?”

“Yes! Yes! Two cords!” a man answered.

“Which shall I pull? The red one?” asked another.

“No! No!” shouted the young aviator. “If you do that you’ll be—you’ll go down too fast,” he hastily substituted. “Pull the white cord. Yank it once, then wait. Then pull it again. Don’t let out too much gas at once.”

Joe had not heard without understanding, what the balloon man had said about the cords which regulated the gas.

“Pull the white cord,” Joe cried again.

“All right,” answered the man.

While Joe flew, encased in the cage of his wings of steel, alongside the drifting balloon, the man reached up and took hold of the white cord. The boy watched him, almost afraid lest, in the excitement of the moment, some mistake be made.

But the man did just what he was told to do. He pulled the white cord, and at once the balloon began to fall.

“Not too much!” cried Joe. “A little at a time.”

“All right,” the man answered. “I understand.”

Again he let out some gas. The balloon sank lower.

“We’re saved! We’re rescued!” cried one of the women in the basket.

As the balloon began to descend Joe, in his wings of steel, guided himself toward the earth.