ie also felt some wet splashes, but he saw at once what they were.

"It's raining!" he cried. And so it was. The storm had broken.

"Raining!" cried Flossie. "And we hasn't got any umbrella!"

"We don't need one," said the little boy. "The balloon's so big it will
be like an umbrella over us."

This was partly true. The bag of the balloon bulged out over the heads
of the children, keeping off most of the rain. But some blew in sideways
over the top of the basket, and the children would have been quite wet
had they not wrapped themselves in blankets. These kept them warm and
dry, for one of the blankets was of rubber.

Thus the little Bobbsey twins sailed on in a balloon, the first ride of
this kind they had ever taken. Their first fright was over, but they
began wondering what would happen next.

Suddenly Flossie discovered a hole in the bottom of the basket, through
which she could look down to the earth. And as she looked she cried:

"Oh, Freddie, we're going down into a lake!"

Freddie looked and saw what his sister had seen. The balloon was now
going down. Probably the gas had leaked out, or there may not have been
more than enough to carry the balloon a short distance. At any rate it
was now falling, and, as the children saw, straight toward a body of
water.

"Shall we fall into the water?" asked Flossie.

"No--no, I don't guess so," Freddie answered. He hoped that was not
going to happen. But as he looked down and saw the water seemingly
coming nearer and nearer, though of course it was the balloon going
down, the little boy did not feel at all sure but they would drop right
into the lake.

"We'd better hold on hard to the basket," said Freddie, after thinking
over the best thing to do. "When we get in the lake we can hold on to
the basket until somebody comes."

This idea made Flossie feel a little better. She was glad she had
Freddie with her, and Freddie was glad Flossie was with him.

Down, down the balloon gently dropped. The rain was pouring hard now,
splashing into the lake, which was covered in some places with a blanket
of fog.

Then, just when it seemed that Flossie and Freddie and the balloon would
splash into the water, an island loomed in sight.

"Oh, if we could only land on the island!" cried Freddie.

And that's just what happened! Through the branches of trees the balloon
crashed, this helping to stop it more gently. Down to the island it
fell, the basket banging on the ground.