s she misunderstood him and cast out the last
bag. Then, with a great heave and a flapping of its torn sides, the
balloon wrenched itself free and shot upward, a cripple soaring with its
last strength. Up and up it went, higher and higher as the small store
of gas expanded. That tattered balloon, with its seams gaping open,
raised itself somehow two miles over the city of Ottawa, and then almost
immediately began to fall. The gas stayed in just long enough to lift
the broken bag, and then left it to dash downward. Professor Myers,
heart-sick on the ground, turned his eyes away, sure that he had seen
his wife alive for the last time.

But Carlotta was of no such mind. She had saved the crowd, now she would
save herself; and even as the balloon dropped with frightful speed, she
put her plan into action. Swinging herself up on the netting, she caught
the flapping silk above a long tear, and drew it down with all her
weight until it reached the car. Instantly the air rushed in underneath,
and bellied out the fabric into a great umbrella, a parachute improvised
from a ripped balloon. Now they were slowing up; they had put the brakes
on, and now they were soaring easily, drifting with the wind. Carlotta
drew a long breath of relief and looked down. They were still a mile
above ground. She had the runaway in hand, but where should she land
him? Most aeronauts would have been thankful enough to get down alive
anywhere; she proposed to do a feat of steering as well. No doubt there
was some gas in the upper part of the bag to help her, but in the main
she was guiding a parachute; and she guided it so skilfully by tipping
the foot-board forward or back, to left or right, that she landed
finally in a clump of evergreen-trees, some fifteen miles from Ottawa,
that she had selected as the very place she proposed to land. And great
were the rejoicings when it was known that she had come to no harm.

The story had an interesting sequel the following year, when Carlotta
made another ascension from the same place.

"Where will you land this time?" one of the committee asked her.

Carlotta looked at the clouds a moment, then, smiling, said, "If you
like, I will land exactly where I did last year."

This they all declared impossible, for the wind was strong in just the
opposite direction; but Carlotta insisted she would land in that clump
of evergreens and nowhere else. And she kept her word. She had observed
that at a certain height th