The wind was roaring through the rigging and the basket was swaying most alarmingly. It seemed to Grace as if they were in imminent danger of being spilled out. She clung tightly to the edge of the basket, and looked down into it rather than toward the earth. What was even more disturbing was the way that wicker floor settled and heaved underneath her feet. What if the bottom should drop out? What if the sides should give way? “Captain” Grace leaned back a little so as not to bear too much weight on the side she was clinging to. Major Colt’s back was turned toward her and his binoculars were at his eyes. Those confident shoulders gave Grace renewed assurance that there was nothing unusual about their situation. Just the same she rather envied J. Elfreda Briggs, probably at that moment lounging back comfortably on the rear seat of the major’s automobile and making uncomplimentary remarks about “that crazy Grace Harlowe.” “Captain” Grace was not over-certain that Elfreda was wrong. Going up in a captive balloon is very different from a trip in an airplane. There is no comparison possible so far as sensations are concerned. Flying in a plane is exhilarating, but the lurches and sways of the basket of a balloon, have a far different effect. They had been going up for hours, as it seemed to her, when the major turned toward her. “Make you dizzy?” he shouted. Grace smiled and nodded. She wondered how pale her face was, or as much of it as showed outside of the helmet. “Enjoying it?” “It is a wonderful experience,” answered Grace, forcing a smile to her face. “Stop at two thousand,” called the officer through his telephone. “Now you see one of the difficulties of going eastward. The strong light is in our faces and we cannot see clearly. After the sun passes the meridian, visibility will be vastly improved. You will enjoy the view then.” Grace Harlowe fervently hoped she might. “Look over. You will get used to it very quickly. Not so much wind at this level. I knew we should get better weather here. Guess I spoke too quickly,” he added as a sickening lurch heaved the basket, and for a few seconds the bottom seemed surely to be falling out of it. “Stopped at two thousand,” came a voice from the depth somewhere below. “Thought you were gone that time, didn’t you?” chuckled the officer. “That jolt was caused by the stopping of the winch at two thousand.” “Two thousand what, sir?” “Feet of altitude. We will loaf around here for a time until you grow weary of it, then we will go higher in search of some new scenery. When the light gets better I will show you the Rhine.” For the next several minutes the officer was occupied with studying the landscape to the eastward. “Enemy trains moving in formation. Nothing unusual,” he called down through the telephone. “Large body of men emerging from forest ten kilometers to the south of the main body. Go to thirty-five. May get a better view.”