by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER IX CUT ADRIFT
For some time Grace Krowl remained at her small table awaiting somefurther message from the mysterious whisperer. No further message came.Had this whisper told the truth? Was he a mile away? She could notbelieve it.
On descending to the floor below, she found her strange uncle prepared toleave his odd store.
"Today I go to an auction," he said to her with a smile. "Today there isnothing to unpack. Not many people will come. They come only when thereare trunks. Tomorrow there will be trunks, perhaps many trunks."
"Trunks," Grace thought with an involuntary shudder.
"Today," her uncle went on, "Margot will tend store." He nodded toward anaged woman bending over a pile of soiled garments. "Today you are free.You may make yourself at home in your new place."
All that day in her little parlor, Grace had one ear open for theWhisperer. She heard nothing. He spoke, apparently, only at dawn. The daywas, for her, quite uneventful.
The same could not be said for our young friend Johnny. Late that day,with a narrow bandage still about his head, he returned to the "House ofMagic." And, almost at once, adventure struck him squarely between theeyes.
"You are just in time!" Felix, the inventor's son, greeted him. "I havenot tried that new thing. We will begin at dusk, in an hour or two in acaptive balloon,--"
"A captive balloon!" Johnny felt a thrill course up his spine.
"On the Fair grounds," Felix added. "There is one over there. The groundsare deserted. I have permission to use the balloon. I have had itinflated. No one will bother us there."
It is better sometimes to do things where there are crowds. Felix was tolearn this. There is safety in numbers.
At the gate of the deserted Fair grounds Felix presented his pass. Theywere admitted.
"Sent the equipment over in a small truck," he explained to Johnny."Rather heavy."
"What equipment?" The words were on Johnny's tongue. He did not say them.Just in time he recollected that he was to look, listen, help all hecould and not ask questions. "I'll be told all I need to know in goodtime," he assured himself. Had he but known it, that night he was to needwisdom not written in any book.
The streets they were passing through now were strange. The fallingdarkness gave to everything an air of mystery. Here some great man-madedragon opened its mouth as if to swallow them, there a tattered signfluttered and cracked in the wind. "The great Century of Progress!"Johnny whispered. "Here thousands swarmed along the Midway. Now all isstill. Now--
"What was that?" He stopped dead in his tracks. Had he caught the soundof scurrying feet? Yes, he was sure of it. And there, well definedagainst a wall, were the shadows of two half crouching figures. One wastall, the other short. Johnny felt a chill run up his spine.
Felix apparently had seen nothing, heard nothing. He had gone ploddingstolidly on into the gathering darkness; was at this moment all but lostfrom sight.
With a little cry of consternation, Johnny sprang after him.
By the time he caught up to him they were at the spot where the balloonwas kept.
"We just release this clutch when we are ready to go up," Felixexplained, "then up we go. There is a time arrangement that will set theelectrically operated drum, winding us back down again in two hours. Weonly go up about three hundred feet. Cable holds us. Quite safe tonight,no wind to speak of."
Johnny thought this a rather strange arrangement. "No guard here?" heasked.
"No need. No one's allowed in the grounds unless they have a pass. Climbin. All set."
Johnny did climb in, and up they went.
Johnny had been in the air many times. For all that, he experienced astrange sense of insecurity as they rose a hundred, two hundred, threehundred feet into the murky air of night. "Pooh!" he exclaimed in a lowbreath. "It is nothing!"
That he might throw off this feeling of dread, he busied himself withother thoughts. His gaze swept the city where lights were gleaming."Where," he thought, "are Drew and Tom? Hunting pickpockets perhaps. Andwhere is Captain Burns? I'm going to like him, I'm sure. He is so solidand real; but jovial for all that. He said he'd take me places. Whatplaces? I wonder. Dangerous places? He said--"
His thoughts were broken in upon by Felix's voice:
"Here we are at the top. Now for the test."
The young inventor flashed on a powerful searchlight. "All I have to dois to connect this through a switch, aim my light at a window in ourhouse, take up this microphone and say, 'Hello father!' He hears me andno one else in the world can. He--
"What!" he exclaimed in consternation. "The current is off. Someone cutthe light cable!"
"More than that!" Johnny's tone was sober. He was looking over the sideof the balloon basket in which they rode. "The cable that holds us hasbeen cut! We're drifting!"
"You're right!" Consternation sounded in the older boy's voice. "We'regoing out into the night, over black waters. And there is no ballast!"
"They got us, those two!" Johnny muttered.
"What two?" Felix demanded.
"I saw them on the grounds, a tall one and a short one--anyway I sawtheir shadows. Should have told you."
"Oh!" Felix groaned. "Wonder what we've done to them. But they haven'tgot us--not yet!" There was courage and high resolve in Felix Van Loon'stone. "We'll beat them yet. You'll see!"
Would they? Johnny silently wondered.
Strangely enough, at that moment thoughts not related at all to thisadventure passed through his mind. He was once more in that place ofmystery, the professor's house, in the hallway seeing eyes in the wall,shuddering at sight of his own skeleton. "How could all that havehappened?" he asked himself.