The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-08

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Bill Rice laughed at the little joke on
his comrade.
you will not be hurt in any way"
said the boy fairy, but this will, 1
hope, be lesson to you and teach you
not to steal boys or anything else. 1t
will take you and the balloon about II
hours to float to that landing place II
miles away, and hope you will enjoy
spending a night among the clouds.
You can have real nice swing"
I'VE must go now said Willie. BY
by, gentlemen. When you get near
Tree-town drop in and call on u.s." And
softly and silently they fioated down
ward, leaving the brutal showmen at
tached to the anchors and sailing slow
ly through the air.
They had gone down, and almost
reached the surface of the river, when
Woo began to look anxious.
Say, Willie" he exclaimed. in an ex-
cited tone. something seems to have
happened
What do you mean?" asked the 9TH
er boy.
why, your pretty white yacht is not
here"
And once more Willies hair stood on
end and his heart beat like a trip ham
mer as he looked all about him. But
he could not see the yacht, nor could
HI see a vessel of any kind.
Woo pressed a button, and imme
dlately superb new balloon, five times
better than the one they had just left,
appeared before them. In a moment the
boys were aboard and speeding shore
ward, borne thither by the wind.
1t was not long before underneath
they saw a railroad train steaming
along on the road which ran close to
the. waters edge.
Nov then Woo said, and he was
so pleased he 'chuckled to himself, L
suppose you would all like to have a
ride on that train?'
Willie nodded.
Then the strangest thing of all hap
pened. Willie expected to see the bal
loon drop to the train and he could
hardly believe his eyes when, in
stead of that, he saw the
heavy train. engine, baggage
cars and passenger coaches slowly
leave the ground and rise in the air.
1t came up bedside the boys, the en-
gineer blew his whistle, the train stop
ped. resting upon. nothing at all, and
Willie and Woo entered one of the
drawingroom cars.
NJ uue Instant Whine leII the balloon
1t simply vanished as though it had
been only soap bubble, and at the
same time Che locomotive whistle toot-
ed up and the train was off, the engin-
eer, no doubt, still thinking that his
train was travelling on the raids as it
always had done before
But inside the car it was a different
thing. Some of the passengers had
looked out of the windows and as they
aAf ~. ~ ~ i
like the earth they began to .tremble
with fear. When they saw Willie and
his friend enter several women began
to scream and one man reached up and
pulled the airbrake rope to stop the
car. He wanted to see what was going
on. But the train went on just the
same and the conductor came in to COL
lect the tickets.
OF course Willie had no tickets. and
for minute he was puzzled for he
didn't know where the train was CO.
ing and so couldn't have the fairies
make a set of tickets to fit the rail-
read schedule. But Woo quickly ar
ranged that little matter.
AS the conductor came along and held
his hand for the tickets. he pressed q
button and instead Of being a. conduc-
tor the man was a bear which growled
and growled and walked up and down
L
women as well as the men.
There was a great scramble as ev-
erybody tried to get under the seats
Willie said he would like to have the
train running on water, so he pressed
the button without thinking and the
car went down. Woo was thinking of
the balloon, and when he gave the or
der for the train to drop to the water
he thought he would give the rest of
the order while they were dropping.
But a train of cars drops a good deal
quicker than a balloon, and before he
could give the second part of the mes
sage it had not only struck the water.
but it had gone to the bottom of the
river.
1t was the work of only half a min
ute to send. in new order by press
ing the button, and there the train
was, with its wheels just touching the
water and speeding along as easily as
it ever did on a track.
But the half minute under the water
had scared the passengers as we'll as
his friends, and the forty-odd persons
were raV!ng around, the women crying
and the men swearing at their luck
While the boy from Treetown was
thinking matters over he suddenly felt
something solt around his neck and
the next instant he was in the grasp
of the bear, which was apparently get
ting hungry. and wanted nice lat
boy to eat for dinner.
Willie gave a loud yell and nearly
jumped out of his skin. He had for
gotten all about the bear conductor.
Before the bear had taken bite out
of his arm, once more the conductor
was a man. thanks to Woo, and a
puzzled one at that. for he couldn't
quite make out how his train happened
to be running on the water.
Willie didn't know but what he
might be arrested for wrecking the
train, so Woo sent another message
and with a great explosion the train
gave jerk and landed square and fair
on the tracks along the river shore.
..... ITO Be Concluded)