embly, a mingled sound
of groans and smothered outcries, and also what one might have
sworn--had it not seemed impossible--was wild hysteric laughter.

Gess and Tell and Eddie Beach, luxuriating in Troy's permission to
"holler as much as they pleased," emitted shrieks that would have
chilled the blood of any whom this strange spectacle had not already
terrified.

For, instead of falling to the ground twenty feet below, as would have
been natural, and lying there, a mangled body, Columbia hung to the
wire, a mad, fantastic, incredible spectacle, head downward, in a blaze
of inverted patriotic splendor!

The wildest confusion ensued. Frosty was beside himself. He simply
danced and yelled where he stood. Those who were in the secret shouted
themselves hoarse with rapture, capering like dervishes, embracing one
another; those who were not, screamed with horror and dismay.

As all gazed fascinated, something drifted down from the hanging figure.
A cowboy plunged forward, caught it up, and there broke upon the sudden
stillness which had followed this incident, a roar of hearty laughter,
as he held high in the blaze of light that came from the pendent figure,
Columbia's wooden-seeming countenance--a false face!

Instantly, the shouting and confusion broke out again. The figure began
to sway; and the light draperies were ignited by some bit of fire which
had been brought into contact with them, by the inversion of Columbia's
proper position.

The figure showed that, beyond the streaming golden hair--the beautiful
fair hair which Aunt Huldah had cut from Daisy's head, and which Daisy
had given with loving generosity--and the stuffed-out waist of
Columbia's classic robe, the only anatomy Columbia possessed was an
upright post with a wheel at the bottom--a caster indeed!--which had run
upon the big wire.

At the top of Columbia's head there had been another wheel, which ran,
trolley-like, upon the upper wire; and a slender wire traveling along
the lower, or footway wire, had drawn the figure forward.

Some obstacle had been met in the overhead wire; and when the figure
was jerked forward, harder and harder, to overcome this, the upper
attachment finally gave way entirely and allowed the figure to fall.
Only Gilbert's precaution of looping a heavy wire from axle to axle of
the lower wheel around the footway wire, had prevented Columbia from
falling to the ground.

As the explanation began to spread over the crowd--not in