“Boches! Too bad they couldn’t have had this opportunity of catching me a few weeks ago. Here we are. I am now about to show the natives what an American girl can do in piloting a parachute to earth.” What the Overton girl had not taken into her reckoning was a tree that stood directly in her downward path. She went through its outer branches, but the parachute, relieved of a little of its weight, swayed forward and missed the tree, straightening up as her weight was once more thrown on the ropes. The wind filled the parachute again, and it began to drift on, parallel with the rows of terraces. In going through the tree, Grace had lost the knife, but she did not miss it as yet, being concerned with her landing and the raking that the branches of the tree had given her. She discovered the loss when, upon reaching up to cut the rope, she found she had nothing with which to cut. It was at that instant that her feet touched the ground. Up to this time the parachute had behaved very well indeed. As she already had expressed it to herself, the animal proved to be “thoroughly halter-broken.” However, the instant it felt that it was free, the thing began to cut up. It lurched and bucked and Grace went through half a dozen rows of vines, boring a path for herself with her head, bowling over two women and a boy in her mad drive. “Catch me!” she gasped, but if her plea was heard it was not heeded. None of the spectators appeared to be eager to get within striking distance of the bird-woman who was first being whipped in the air, then on the vines of the Rhine vineyard. Her feet were in the air about as much as they were on the ground, for the parachute had now changed its course and was headed for the Rhine. Ahead of her Grace espied a stone wall, and an idea came to her, for her mind was working even if, up to that point, her body had been unable to perform any functions of self-preservation. “If I can get my feet against that wall as we go over, I may be able to brace myself for a few seconds until something rips. Surely the silk ought to tear in those circumstances.” Her monologue was cut short by a dive into a thick hedge that divided two vineyards. It seemed to Grace as if the raking she got was literally tearing her to pieces. Her clothing, when she came through, was in tatters, her body bore many deep scratches and cuts, and blood from a scalp wound was trickling down her face. There was one side of Grace Harlowe, though, that no amount of mauling could subdue--her spirit of pluck. “I’ll win yet,” she gritted, coming to her feet, which were jerked from the ground, while she kept her gaze fastened on the stone fence at the bottom of the rows of terraces.