The next instant the boy, vainly clutching the air for some sort of grip for his hands, toppled over backward. His feet slid from the meshes of the net, and he plunged downward toward the earth, more than a mile below! CHAPTER IX THE FROZEN NORTH REACHED "He'll be killed!" shouted Jack. "He's a goner!" yelled Washington, looking up from the engine room window. The old professor groaned and shut his eyes. He did not want to see the boy fall. Bill and Tom, with old Andy Sudds, had been watching Mark at his perilous task, standing directly beneath him. Andy was the closer. He leaned quickly backward when he saw what had happened. Mark's body, turning over in its descent, was at the ship's side. Out shot the hands of the old hunter. His fingers were curved like the talons of an eagle. The long arms seemed to reach a great distance, and then, just as it seemed that Mark would plunge downward to his death, Andy grasped and held him. "There!" exclaimed the hunter. "That was a close call, my boy!" Mark did not answer. The fearful danger he had been saved from had so frightened him that he became partially unconscious. "Is he dead?" faltered Jack. "He has only fainted," answered Amos Henderson. "I'll soon bring him around." The inventor hurried into the cabin and came out with some liquid in a glass. This he placed to Mark's lips and soon the color came back into the pale cheeks. "What happened? Where am I?" asked the boy, sitting up and looking around. "You're all right," answered Andy. "It was a close call though. I reckon you won't want to mend any more airships right away." "I remember now," went on Mark, who had been dazed by the suddenness of it all. "I fell, didn't I?" "Yes, and Andy caught you," put in Jack. "He was just in time." Mark said nothing, but the fervor with which he shook the old hunter by the hand showed how deep his feeling was. In a little while the fright and excitement caused by the accident had passed over. The ship now rode evenly and neither rose nor fell, in consequence of the gas supply in the bag remaining the same, there being no leak. The patch Mark had put on fitted so closely that there was not the least escape of gas now. "Well, we might as well start ahead," said Amos Henderson, at length. "We have had excitement enough in this neighborhood, and maybe we'll be better off if we go forward." Accordingly he went to the conning tower, set the propeller in motion, and soon the _Monarch_ was moving northward at great speed. With his eyes on the compass in front of him the captain held the ship on her course. They were about half a mile above the ground now, the captain having allowed the _Monarch_ to settle. They could see that they were passing over a populated part of the country. "Come up here!" yelled Captain Henderson to the boys from the steering tower. "I'll explain a few things to you."