The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1915-02-02

ton and effect. He started to run to.
ward the basket. shouting peremptory
orders:
"Out Of the car; out of the car in.
stantly, madame! You are risking
your life"
His excitement infected the crowd,
which surged forward.
Surging. 1t seemed to sweep with
1t the rider on the FESTIVE horse. For,
as hand was suddenly lifted in the
midst of the crowd the horse appar-
emily overcame the legs braced to
spring, 1t shot forward directly at the
balloon basket.
The hand that had been raised was
the hand of Raymond Owen.
All was happening so swiftly that
neither Harry nor Panatella reached
the basket before the maddened ami
NAL.
The crowd had given way in panic
before it. Cries of fright were min
sled with cries Of pain as the beast
charged straight upon the men hold
ing the basket, telling and crushing
them with shoulder and hoof
For an instant a few desperate
hands held to the wrenching car. Pan
atella had all but reached the plat
form Harry was within arms length
of it, when. with a writing twist,
the bag jerked the basket sideways
and upward, knocking to the ground
the last two men who had held it.,
and whirling forth into the deathly
emptiness of space a covering, stun
ned girl, whose white face peered and
white hands pleaded over the basket
rim-peered down upon the upturned
faces of thousands who would have
risked their lives to aid, but who stood
helpless in their pity, hushed in fear.
Far off across the field the strange
horseman had been whisked in an in
slant by his vicious steed. He seem
ed to get control for moment, to
stop and stare upward at the balloon
which was shooting higher on a west
ward course. Then he gave rein to
the beast, and its laundering hoofs
echoed back for miles down the high
way, as Eddie Kaboff fled from the
blacklist days work of his life.
For moment Harry had stood
dazed. 1T was as If the tWanging taut
OF the ropes, as the bag tore almost
from his grosp the most precious be.
ing in the world, had snapped the
tibres of action in him.
The daze passed quickly, but in the
moment of it's passing the balloon,
risen now five hundred feet in the
air, had swept its way westward over
mile of ground.
Harry turned to look for his motor
car. Standing as he was at the spot
from which the balloon had assembled,
he now faced a human barricade. With
a shout OF warning he charged at
what seemed to be vulnerable point
in the files of wedged shoulders.
The wall resisted. The throng was
lost to all but the dimming view of
the balloon. Harry swung right and
left with his broad shoulders. He tore
his way through.
The car was standing where he had
left it on the outskirts of the field.
AS he approached it he saw Owen
emerge from the crowd and hurry
toward runabout that had just been
driven upon the field.
IN hats the matter?" yelled man
in the machine, and Harry recognized
the voice of Hicks
miss Marvin-carried away in the
balloon!' cried Owen in tone of ex-
citement that was not all feigned. He
joined Hicks beside the runabout and
they talked together rapidly
Harry sprang to the seat of his tour
ing car. 1t seemed to leap forward.
He shot past the two conspirators and
heard Owens voice calling after him:
Wait! Where are you going? I'll
go with YOU
You're too late" shouted Harry
bitterly over his shoulder. An envel-
ope of dust sealed itself around the
spinning wheels of the big machine
as he took the road after the balloon
Steadfast but hopeless he fixed his
eyes upon the unconquerable thing in
its unassailable element-a thing that
seemed to be fleeing from him as if
inspired by a human will Death
rode beside him at his breakneck
speed, but he did not know it. He
knew only that he must follow that
black beacon in the sky-that he must
be there when the flight was over
when the end came.
He did not know that Owen and