We were all ready now. By a short, stout rope, running from a stanchion through a ring in the deck to another ring in the bottom of our boat-car and thus back to the stanchion again, our balloon was held close captive. Coiled on the deck beside us lay twenty-five hundred feet of smaller rope, one end of it attached to the ring beneath the car, and the other lashed firmly about an iron “bit”—thus constituting our anchorage while aloft. The Cloudcrest was very large, certainly, and pulled desperately in the clear, cold air, but it did not seem possible that she would be able to lift all that great length of line. A little more than a hundred yards away was the perpendicular blue barrier of ice, beyond whose lofty summit we hoped soon to look. Our shorter anchorage was all that detained us, and a man stood ready with a keen knife, to sever at the word. When ready to descend we had only to open the valve above and let out the gas. We expected to be back in an hour. Chauncey Gale took his seat last. He kissed his daughter as if he were starting on a journey. This inclination had seized me also, but not the resolution so I had merely pressed her hand. All except the man with the knife drew back. “Ready! One, two, three, cut!” There was a sharp hissing sound, a sudden upward jerk, and a white world fell away beneath us. The cold air rushed by and took our breath. Then presently it passed less swiftly. The weight of our anchor rope was beginning to tell. Like Alice falling into Wonderland we were going slowly enough at length to take in things as we went along. There were no empty jam-pots, but the swift panorama of the stratified wall was interesting. Ferratoni handed me the telephone. “All right, below?” I called. “All right!” came the voice of Edith Gale, “but how small you are getting!” “We feel bigger than we look!” “Is Daddy all right?” “Yes, he’s getting out a sleeping-bag, so if he feels cold he can get into it.” Gale seized the transmitter. “Slander,” he called. “We’ve already found two hot bricks in Nick’s pocket, and he’s been begging like a stray kitten to be taken home!” Up, and up, and up! The Billowcrest below grew small, then smaller, and became at last a toy boat tossed into a snowdrift. Nearer and nearer came the verge of the barrier. “Can’t you see over it yet?” called the voice in the phone. “It looks as if you could.” “Not yet! Soon, though. We’re half crazy with excitement!” “Tell me the instant you _can_ see over, and just what you can see!” “Yes, of course! In another second now—we——” There was a sudden movement of the car. Looking up I saw that the balloon bag, now lifting above the barrier, had been caught in an upper current of air from the north, and was being carried inward, to the wall. In another instant it struck the jagged edge of the precipice, rebounded, was caught again by the air current and lifted, and with a wild sweep went plunging over the barrier, dragging us almost horizontally behind!