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CHAPTER IV
A BREAK FOR LIBERTY

The little ragamuffin addressed by Frank raised his dirt-creased, tear-stained face pathetically. He looked at his questioner for a moment and then went on crying harder than ever.

“Well,” said Frank, “this is a queer go. Come, little son, brace up and tell what is the matter with you. Who is Fido – a dog?”

“Sure. He’s in there, he’s been in there for two days now, and I cannot get him out.”

“There appears to be a good many dogs in there, judging from the racket,” said Frank. “What kind of a place is this, anyhow?”

“It’s the pound,” explained the urchin. “Belongs to Riverton, but Sile Stoggs runs it. Know Stoggs?”

“I don’t,” answered Frank.

“He’s a brute – Oh, what a brute!” cried the little fellow. “Was a constable – the mean kind. Turned a poor woman out of her house in the cold last winter. She died, and her two big brothers met Stoggs one dark night and nearly kicked the life out of him. He had to give up business, for they crippled him.”

“Go ahead,” encouraged Frank.

“He had some pol – politicattle friends, I think they call it. One of them was a sharp lawyer. He raked up a lot of old ord – ordinants.”

“Ordinances, I suppose you mean?” suggested Frank.

“Yes, sir, that sounds more like it, – anyway, village laws, see? They said Riverton should have a pound. They worked it so that Stoggs got the job of poundmaster. The town pays him a big rent for these old barracks. Used to be a trotting park. He drives around in a little dog cart, and picks up all the stray horses and cows he can catch. Then the owners have to pay two dollars to get them out of the pound. Stoggs gets half. Wish that was Stogg,” and the boy kicked a dirt clump so hard that he stubbed his toe and winced.

“And what about the dogs?” asked Frank.

“That’s a new wrinkle. About a month ago Stoggs’ lawyer fished up another old law about dog license, or tax, or something of that kind. Since then he’s been capturing all the dogs he could find for miles around. It wouldn’t matter, if he was kind to them,” went on the lad, “but he isn’t. He starves them. He beats them, too awfully. And you’d ought to see the dirty old water trough where he makes them drink. Mother is poor. We can’t pay any two dollars to get Fido out. But I come here every day and bring all the meat I can gather up, and feed the poor things. The trouble is, though, there is so many of them in there, and they are so hungry, and poor Fido is so small, he hardly ever gets a nibble. There’s a grand, big dog in there looks out for him when he can, and divides a bone with him, but the rough dogs get most of the food.”

“Have you tried to get this Stoggs to let you have Fido back?” inquired Frank.

“Yes, but he only abused me, laughed at me, and drove me away. Yesterday he caught me trying to dig that board loose near the boulders. He kicked me, and struck me twice with his club. Wish I had a shovel. It would be safe to dig a bit now. A big balloon went over here a little while ago. I saw Stoggs in his cart driving over to the hill to get a better sight of it.”

“H’m,” mused Frank. “Quite an interesting situation. I’ll take a look inside there, I guess. Hey, hello, why – Christmas!”

Frank, in mingled pleasure and astonishment, fairly shouted out this name. The minute he had mounted the boulders and peered in through the crack in the fence, he made out his own missing canine among a motley group of over forty dogs.

Slam! came an instantaneous bound against the fence that made it quiver and creak. Slam – slam! right up to the spot where Frank had uttered the name, Christmas sprang repeatedly. He was mad with joy and excitement at recognizing his young master’s voice.

Frank was now quite as much stirred up as his youthful companion. He had to call to Christmas to reassure and quiet the animal. The dog was tearing at the fence barrier in such a frenzied manner that Frank feared he would severely injure himself.

“How did Christmas ever get this far away from home?” he reflected, getting off the boulders and onto the ground again. “Say, if that Stoggs has gone deliberately out of his territory and caught him at Greenville, I’ll get the boys to come here and tar and feather him. Easy, old fellow,” called Frank to Christmas, who, yelping frantically, could still be heard throwing himself against the boards of the fence.

“My goodness!” shouted Frank’s companion, suddenly. “Look at that, now.”

His eyes goggled as a great snap sounded out.

“The mischief!” exclaimed Frank. “This won’t do.”

Christmas, it seemed, had flung his body with terrific force against the very plank where the owner of Fido had been digging. Its ground end was soaked and rotted by the damp earth that had surrounded it. It gave, vibrating, and Christmas forced his head and shoulders through the aperture. He wriggled and howled, for the board closed on him like a wedge. Then, making a desperate lunge, the dog bore the board outwards. There was a sharp snap. Obliquely the timber ripped four feet up its length.

Bursting the slivered section fully apart, Christmas, with a joyous howl, sprang free. He bounded upon his master in frantic delight, with such impetuosity that he bore Frank flat to the ground.

“Here, behave, old fellow. Well, I’m glad, too,” said Frank. “For mercy’s sake!”

With difficulty restraining the wild caresses of his loyal dumb friend, Frank regained his feet to stare about him in consternation.

Christmas had blazed the way to freedom, and a vast concourse was following his lead. It was like bees pouring out from a bee hive. Through the break in the fence there came bounding what seemed to be an endless procession. There were big dogs and little dogs, mastiffs, fox terriers and collies. One magnificent St. Bernard got wedged in the fence break. Those behind fairly pushed him through, letting loose a stream of canines like corn from a spout.

Out bounded the released animals, fairly crazy with delight at finding their freedom. Nearly all of them instantly made for a near ditch filled with clear water. They lapped it up luxuriously, they rolled and wallowed in the pure, cool element. Then, like diverging spokes from one central source, they streaked it homewards as instinct told them their proper compass point.

The little ragged urchin Frank found seated on the ground, fondling and crying over the tiniest, silken-haired poodle he had ever seen. Its own affectionate antics were fairly affecting. Beside the pair, limping on three legs, a forlorn little fox-terrier looked homelessly and friendlessly longing, as if begging for a share of attention.

“Yes, I’ll take you, too!” cried the ragged youngster, putting Fido under one arm and gathering up the crippled canine in the other. “Say,” he shouted to Frank, “you’re a brick! Oh, but you’ve done a good day’s work. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Only, get now – don’t wait. If Stoggs catches us, he’ll send us to jail for life. Why,” continued the urchin with a start, staring hard at Christmas, “is that your dog?”

“It is,” nodded Frank.

The little fellow stooped and deliberately kissed Christmas, his eyes full of grateful tears, purring out fond terms of endearment.

“You’re two grand fellows!” he blubbered. “That’s the dog that was such a good friend to Fido,” and Fido, whimpering, struck out his head and rubbed noses with Christmas, who frolicked around all hands as if some great jubilee was going on.

“Yes, I fancy we had better be moving on,” said Frank, with a glance into the enclosure to find it entirely deserted by its recent inmates.

“About your dog, though,” said his companion, hurriedly. “I can tell you something about him.”

“Can you, indeed?” asked Frank.

“Yes, sir. I was here the day a man drove up in a gig from Riverton-way with your dog.”

“In a gig?” repeated Frank, pricking up his ears.

“Yes, I was hanging around near the house at the front of the pound. The man called Stoggs out. He had your dog tied behind the axle. He made a bargain with Stoggs for five dollars to get rid of the animal – send him away somewhere. He was a man with reddish side-whiskers and a cast in one eye.”

Frank’s own good eyes flamed. He drew his breath with an angry catch in it.

“Dorsett,” he said. “The villain did it, eh? I wondered how poor Christmas came to be cooped up here, so far away from home. The mean sneak! He did it so he could snoop around the house and spy on us without interruption. Going? Good-bye. I hope you will keep Fido safe and sound from the dogcatchers this time.”

“You bet I will,” cried the little fellow, bolting off with his double canine burden. “And you’re a brick!”

Frank turned his face in the direction of home. He soon got out of sight of the pound with no indication of his having been seen or pursued. Christmas bounded over the fresh turf, cutting up all kinds of antics and barking joyously.

When they reached the flats Frank secured his rubber boots and was soon in the midst of the morass. Christmas led the way, making grand fun of leaps and dousings, and they reached the woods beyond with no mishap.

Frank drew his bicycle from the spot where he had hidden it, secured his rubber boots to the machine, and was speedily threading the path he had traversed in the opposite direction earlier in the day.

Passing down a gentle declivity in an open space, Christmas set up a sudden bark. Frank turned, to observe the dog halted and looking aloft.

“Hello!” exclaimed Frank, also glancing skywards. “That must be the balloon the little fellow at the pound was telling about.”

The balloon was about two miles distant, and was instantly obscured from view by some tall trees.

Frank had kept on going without looking ahead. The momentary distraction had its result.

Too late he turned the handle bars of the bicycle and set the brake.

Bump! the machine struck a jagged tree stump, and Frank Newton took a header.

CHAPTER V
THE BALLOONIST’S RESCUE

There was a sharp bang as the bicycle struck the tree stump. Frank righted himself readily and ran to the machine where it had fallen.

“Pshaw!” he exclaimed, “tire punctured and the wheel a pretty bad wreck generally.”

This was true. A jagged sliver had ripped a hole in both the outer and inner tubes of the front wheel. The hard bang against the tree stump had twisted several spokes out of place and set a rim wobbling.

Frank had started in such a hurry from Riverton that morning that he had not thought of taking his mending kit along. He debated what he should do without further loss of time.

“I might carry it,” he reflected. “If I try to run it, I will loosen it up more and lose some of the parts. Guess I’ll leave it here, get my message to Mr. Buckner, stop at the house for my tool kit, and fix the machine up right here. This way, my staunch and trusty friend,” he hailed to Christmas. “Watch it, old fellow, watch it,” said Frank to the dog, placing his hand on the wheel.

Christmas looked longingly after his young master as Frank started on foot for Greenville. However, the animal posed right alongside the bicycle. Frank knew that it would take a loaded cannon to drive the trusty canine from the vicinity of his charge until he himself reappeared and gave the word.

It was just one o’clock when Frank, a trifle dusty and footsore, entered the office of Mr. Buckner.

“Well, well, good for you, Frank,” commended the insurance man, as he glanced at the clock and then at his visitor’s beaming face. “Of course you succeeded?”

“I did,” admitted Frank, a little proudly, “but there was a tangle.”

“Ah, indeed?”

“Yes, sir. Dorsett was on the spot. There is the receipt. I had to climb for it.”

“What do you mean?”

Frank told of the circumstances of his exploit at Mr. Pryor’s office at Riverton. Mr. Buckner lay back in his chair chuckling and laughing. Then he got up and clapped Frank approvingly on the shoulder with one hand, and with the other extended a crisp new five-dollar bill.

“I am glad to get this,” said Frank, “but I have hardly earned so much, I think.”

“What! when you saved the day by your nimbleness and square common sense? See here, Frank, I’m mightily pleased with you, and if you will drop in here to-morrow I think I can put you in the way of earning a few more of those precious notes.”

Frank bowed his thanks and left the office with a light heart. He went straight home, entered the house quietly, and actually startled his mother by silently dropping the five-dollar bill on the book in her lap.

Mrs. Ismond shared her son’s pleasure when Frank recited his brisk experiences of the morning. He ate a good lunch with appetizing vigor, secured his bicycle repair kit, and was soon down the road, whistling cheerily all the way to the big woods.

As Frank neared the spot where he had left Christmas and the bicycle, he was greeted with loud and repeated barking.

“That’s strange,” he mused. “Christmas isn’t given to such demonstrations when on duty. Some one must have come in sight or hearing. Hey, old fellow, what’s all this rumpus?” questioned Frank, as, emerging from a copse, he came in full view of the dog.

Christmas was running up and down in front of the bicycle. He would face in a certain direction and pose and bark. He even ran up to his master as Frank approached, and seizing his coat in his teeth gently but resolutely pulled him in the direction he had pointed.

“He means something by all this,” declared Frank. “Go ahead,” he ordered.

Christmas, thus advised, bounded forward among some big trees. Frank, coming up with him after a jaunt of about three hundred feet, found him squatted on his haunches under a giant oak tree, looking up among its branches. Frank looked up, too. A moving object attracted his attention.

“Why,” said Frank, staring fixedly, “it’s a balloon.”

This he discerned beyond question. He could plainly make out its slack rigging. An ungainly, half-distended gas bag was wobbling about in the topmost branches of the tree. Lower down, turned sideways and partly smashed in, was a big wicker basket.

“It must be the balloon that little ragged fellow told about, the same one that I saw when I took that header from the bicycle,” decided Frank. “There couldn’t have been any one in it. Oh, say – but there was, Mercy!” and Frank gave a violent start and quick gasp. He stood transfixed with a sudden thrilling emotion akin to terror.

His eye sweeping the tree expanse keenly, he now made out, lying across two limbs about thirty feet from the ground, a human figure.

This form was motionless, and bent the branches considerably. As the breeze stirred them, they rocked like a cradle.

Frank guessed out the situation instantly. The balloon had driven or dropped into the tree top, shattering the cage and tipping out its pilot.

The latter had sustained a twenty-foot fall, striking some big branches with enough force to stun him. He had landed on his present frail perch. Frank’s heart almost stood still as he realized that a single waking moment, a treacherous shifting of the wind, might precipitate the imperilled balloonist to the ground with a broken neck.

Frank’s nerves were on a hard strain, but he grew composed as he decided what he would do. He motioned the dog to silence, and at once started to climb the tree.

He kept his eye on the swaying figure overhead all the time. At length Frank reached a big crotched branch shooting out from the main trunk not four feet under that which sustained the unconscious balloonist.

Frank braced his feet across the crotch. He took a great, long breath of relief and satisfaction, for he found himself now so situated that if the man should stir or slip from his insecure resting place, he could retard his fall.

Frank had, upon leaving home, placed a long coil of rope in his coat pocket. This he intended to use to tie up the bicycle in case he found it necessary to take it home to repair it. He now used this to form a criss-cross sort of a hammock directly under the two branches supporting the balloonist.

“There,” said Frank finally, feeling he had the man in right shape at last. “If he drops, that contrivance will hold him like a net.”

The youth rested for a few minutes, for it had been no easy task to slip the rope around the two branches and secure it stoutly. When he again stood up, he moved along his footing so that his face was on a level with the strange bed of the balloonist.

The latter lay sunk down among bending twigs like a person in a hammock. His face was bloodless, and over one temple was a great lump. That was probably where a heavy branch had struck and stunned him.

The stranger was fairly well-dressed, and he had intelligent features. For all this, however, there was a careless, easy-going look about him. He did not at all suggest to Frank the quick-witted, nerve-strained typical aeronaut.

Frank made his footing very sure, braced firmly, and with one hand took a stout grasp under the sleeper’s collar.

“Wake up – wake up,” he called directly in his ear.

The man stirred faintly, only. Frank continued to call out to him. He also with his other hand slapped his chest, his cheeks, his outstretched palms.

Finally with a deep groan the man opened his eyes wide suddenly. He stared and mumbled and tried to start up, but Frank held him flat.

“Easy, mister, now,” warned Frank gently. “Take time to find out the fix you are in. Then let me help you to the ground.”

“Help me – why, ginger! I understand,” exclaimed the balloonist.

He lay back weakly, staring at Frank, then all about him, and finally up at the gas bag flopping about in the upper branches of the tree top.

“I remember now,” he went on in a drawling, reminiscent tone. “It was a quick drop. Valve blew out. A regular smash when we landed. She’s a wreck, isn’t she? And say,” and the man glancing sideways downward shuddered, “if I had gone the full header it would have been all day with me, eh?”

Frank nodded. Briefly he explained how he had come to discover the refugee’s plight. He helped the man to sit up, guiding and assisting him. The latter came slowly out of his maze of bewilderment, and looked grateful.

“You’ve saved me, I guess,” he observed. “One move or slip, and I’d have gone shooting down the rest of the way.”

“When you are ready, let me help you to the ground,” suggested Frank.

“Oh, I’m all right now. Just a little shaking up,” assured the man. “No, no, don’t you worry. I’m at home among trapezes.”

The balloonist extricated himself successfully from the swaying branches and poised in a crotch nearer to the main trunk of the tree.

“Just a minute,” he said, deftly going up the tree, clambering over the shattered basket and reaching up.

There was a great hiss and a dense taint of escaping gas in the air as he operated some valve in the mechanism of the balloon. The gas bag dropped gracefully to a mass of silken and rubber folds.

Then the man started to descend, Frank preceding him. Both reached the ground in safety. The balloonist took an approving look at Frank, patted Christmas and began arranging his disordered attire.

“What are you going to do next?” asked Frank, after his companion had walked around the tree two or three times, viewing its top speculatively the while, and whistling softly to himself.

“Well, the bag is safe for a time. I guess I’d better get to the nearest town and telegraph the boss. It will be a job getting the balloon out of that fix without further damage.”

“If you will rest a bit till I fix up a broken bicycle I have over yonder, I will pilot you to Greenville,” said Frank.

“Good for you,” commended the man, and he followed Frank to the spot where the wheel lay.

Frank set at work on the damaged bicycle. He now had the necessary tools and material at hand to fix it up. At the end of ten minutes he had the wheel in safe shape to roll it home, where he could repair it more permanently.

Meantime his companion rattled on volubly. He told Frank his name was Park Gregson. He was a sort of a “knockaround.” He had been with a circus, had fought Indians, had been major in the South African War, had circumnavigated the globe twice, in fact, a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none for over fifteen years.

“That balloon,” he explained, “belongs to a professional aeronaut. He hired me to help him. She’s a new one, that yonder. I was making a trial cruise. Professor Balmer, who owns her, is at Circleville. As I say, I must wire him to come and get her on her feet again.”

“You mean her wings?” suggested Frank.

“Exactly. Ready? No, you needn’t help me, I’m only a trifle bruised and stiff.”

Frank led the way townwards. He stopped at the house to put his bicycle away. Then he accompanied his companion to the railroad depot. Here Park Gregson wrote out a telegram and handed it to the operator.

“Expect an answer,” he observed. “I’ll call for it. No, send it to me. I say, Newton,” he addressed Frank with friendly familiarity, “where’s the best place to put up till the professor reports himself?”

“There’s a fairly good hotel here,” said Frank.

Gregson looked a trifle embarrassed for an instant. Then he laughed, saying.

“They’ll have to take me in penniless till the professor arrives.”

“That will be all right,” declared Frank. “I’ll vouch for you. But say, if you would be our guest at home, you will be very welcome.”

“And I will be very delighted to have your most entertaining company,” instantly replied Gregson. “I’ll make it all right when the boss comes.”

Frank was glad to offer this hospitality to his new chance acquaintance. The man interested him. Everything he talked about he covered in a vivid way that made his descriptions instructive. Already he had suggested some points to Frank that had set the latter thinking in new directions. The wide experience of the man was suggestive and valuable to Frank.

Park Gregson asked the telegraph operator to send any reply to his message to the Newton home, and accompanied Frank there.

As they neared the cottage a man in a gig came driving down the road. It was Dorsett.

He glared fiercely at Frank, and then bestowed an inquisitive, suspicious look upon the stranger.

Frank introduced Gregson to his mother, who prepared a lunch for him. Gregson was more shaken up than he had expressed, and was glad to lie down and rest in the neatly-furnished spare room of the cottage.

Frank had some odd chores to do about the village. When he came home again about six o’clock he found Gregson refreshed-looking and comfortably seated in the parlor reading a book.

They had a pleasant time at the supper table. Then they adjourned to the cozy little sitting-room. Christmas was allowed to stay in the house, and seemed to enjoy the animated ways of the balloonist as much as the others.

Park Gregson fairly fascinated them with the story of his travels and adventures in many countries.

“You see, I have been quite a rolling stone, Mrs. Ismond,” he said. “A harmless one, though.”

“Have you never thought of settling down to some regular occupation, sir?” suggested Frank’s mother.

“It’s not in me, madam, I fear,” declared the knockaround. “I did try it once, for a fact. Yes, I actually went into business.”

“What was the line, Mr. Gregson?” asked Frank.

“Mail order business.”

Frank showed by the expression of his face that the balloonist had struck a theme of great interest to him.

“I had a partner,” went on Gregson. “We advertised and sold sets of rubber finger tips to protect the hands of housewives when working about the house.”

“Was it a success?” inquired Frank.

“It was great – famous. The orders just rolled in. We made money hand over fist and spent it like water. One day, though, there came a stop to it all. A lawyer served an injunction on us. It seemed that the device was a French invention patented in this country. My partner sloped with most of the funds, leaving me stranded. All the same, it’s a great business – the mail order line.”

For over an hour Frank kept their guest busy answering a hundred earnest questions as to all the details of the mail order business.

When Gregson had retired for the night Frank sat silent and thoughtful in the company of his mother. Finally he said.

“Mother, Mr. Gregson’s talk has done me a lot of good.”

“I saw you were very much interested,” remarked Mrs. Ismond.

“Interested!” repeated Frank with vim, unable to control his restless spirit and getting up and pacing the room to and fro – “I am simply wild to go deeper into this mail order business. Why, it looks plain as day to me – the way to begin it – the way to exploit it – the way to make a great big success of it. He says that little metal novelties of the household kind take the best. I was just thinking: there’s a hardware novelties factory right on the spot at Pleasantville, and – Down, Christmas, down!”

The dog had interrupted Frank with a low growl. Then, before Frank could deter him, the animal flew at the open window of the sitting-room.

Frank seized Christmas by the collar, just as the animal was aiming to leap clear through it to the garden outside.

“Why, what is the matter, Christmas?” spoke Mrs. Ismond, arising to her feet in some surprise.

Just then a frightful shriek rang out from under the open window, accompanied by the frantic words:

“Help, murder, help – I’m nearly killed!”