of the bar. And then he reached and
got the rope on the other side, and set straddle of her. And jest as he
done that the wind ketched the balloon good and hard, and she turned out
toward Lake Erie. It was too late fur him to pull the rope that sets the
parachute loose then, and drop onto the land.

I rushed out of that schoolhouse yard and down the street toward the
lake front, and run, stumbling along and looking up. She was getting
smaller every minute. And with my head in the air looking up I was
running plumb to the edge of the water before I knowed it.

She was away out over the lake now, and awful high, and going fast
before the wind, and the doctor was only a speck. And as I stared at
that speck away up in the sky I thought this was a mean world to live
in. Fur there was the only real friend I ever had, and no way fur me to
help him. He had learnt me to read, and bought me good clothes, and made
me know they was things in the world worth travelling around to see, and
made me feel like I was something more than jest Old Hank Walters's dog.
And I guessed he would be drownded and I would never see him agin now.
And all of a sudden something busted loose inside of me, and I sunk
down there at the edge of the water, sick at my stomach, and weak and
shivering.

CHAPTER X

I didn't exactly faint there, but things got all mixed fur me, and when
they was straightened out agin I was in a hospital. It seems I had
been considerable stepped on in that fight, and three ribs was broke. I
knowed I was hurting, but I was so interested in what was happening to
the doctor the hull hurt never come to me till the balloon was way out
over the lake.

But now I was in a plaster cast, and before I got out of that I was in a
fever. I was some weeks getting out of there.

I tried to get some word of Doctor Kirby, but couldn't. Nothing had been
heard of him or the balloon. The newspapers had had stuff about it fur a
day or two, and they guessed the body might come to light sometime. But
that was all. And I didn't know where to hunt nor how.

The hosses and wagon and tent and things worried me some, too. They
wasn't mine, and so I couldn't sell 'em. And they wasn't no good to me
without Doctor Kirby. So I tells the man that owns the livery stable to
use the team fur its board and keep it till Doctor Kirby calls fur it,
and if he never does mebby I will sometime.

I didn't want to stay in that town or I could of got a job