“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 assisting 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,” assured 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 mass 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 circumnavigated 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.”