‘I don’t mind if I do,’ laughed Lucius, ‘though, to be sure, it is rather early for breakfast. Oh, Grizzly,’ he went on, munching the viands, ‘I was in a horrible fright when we first started. I was in two minds about stepping out of the car, when old Blue Bag, as you seem to have named the balloon, shot up to the length of the rope, and then of course I was done for.’ ‘Ye war,’ chuckled Ephraim, following suit with the provisions; ‘but now ye see it’s jest the nicest kind er travellin’ ever invented. I ’low I warn’t quite sure myself how it would be when fust we started, but I wouldn’t ask nuthin’ better than this. Wait till mornin’ comes and we’ll show our flag.’ ‘Flag!’ echoed Lucius. ‘Have you brought a flag?’ ‘Rayther!’ said Ephraim; ‘a proper one, too—stars and bars and all. I didn’t want our boys ter fire on us ye know, sposin’ we came too close to the ground.’ ‘But the Yanks will fire on us if they see the flag,’ argued Lucius. ‘By time! I never thort er thet,’ confessed Ephraim with humility. His reasoning was not infrequently like that of Sir Isaac Newton with regard to his cat and her kitten. ‘Waal, never mind, we’ll do without the flag. And ez ter shootin’,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘ef it comes ter thet, I reckon we kin stand a siege.’ Lucius did not hear this remark, and in response to his request for its repetition, Grizzly merely asserted that it didn’t matter. Providence was kind to the two lads in their ignorance, and for a couple of hours they floated peacefully along, sublimely unconscious of the dangers to which they were exposed, and chatting, with boyish disregard of the awfulness of the theme, over their chances of witnessing the most horrible sight in nature—men struggling together in bloody strife, like savage beasts of prey. Then suddenly a red light flared up in the east, and Ephraim exclaimed cheerfully: ‘Thar comes the mornin’. We’ll soon larn our wharabouts now.’ But, even as he said the words, the fires of day were extinguished, a wet veil enveloped the balloon, which heeled over as a blast of bitter cold wind rushed shrieking through the cordage. A long, jagged stream of blinding light rent the cloud-bank into which they had entered, while, almost simultaneously, a stunning thunder roll reverberated all around them. ‘Oh!’ shrieked Lucius, burying his face in his hands. ‘How awful! Let us go down. Quick! quick! The balloon will burst.’ ‘We can’t!’ gasped Ephraim, also temporarily out of his senses with fright. ‘I’ve lost my grip of the valve cord.’ It was true. Not expecting such a contretemps, he had neglected to secure the valve cord, which at the first lurch of the balloon had swung through the cordage, and now dangled out of reach and invisible in the darkness.