142
THE GREEN BAG
at his word. He then went out amongst the crowd and took up quite a collection for him, and the lad started up in the balloon according to his promise. After rising to a height sufficient to sustain the prestige of his employers, the circus owners, he cut loose the parachute and shot earth ward. But the parachute, instead of open ing, went shooting through the air as fast as the attraction of gravity required. He shot downward a sheer one hundred feet perhaps. At last the thing opened, and he breathed a little more easily. Asked the question how he managed to hang on be tween the time he cut loose from the balloon and the time the parachute opened he said: "Oh! just a little grip and a little grit." Very little time had elapsed after the opening of the parachute before there sprang up a breeze from the east. (This incident happened at Portland, Oregon.) Unless something were done, this breeze would ultimately carry him out to sea. At last he came directly above and within about sixteen feet of a slate gable roof. He could see that the house to which this roof belonged was surrounded by a soft, green lawn. Our hero decided that it was a case of now or never for him. He felt that he could drop, strike the gable roof, and carom thence to the green lawn. This he did successfully, without breaking any bones, falling in such a way as to just miss the fence, one of its spear points piercing his coat-tail. This was the man whose judgment I was taking against the advice of an experi enced navigator, to wit, the Captain of the port of Appari, and against the advice of the officers of the i6th Infantry. How ever, it was too late, and too much trouble, and too ridiculous to turn back now. Next morning we weighed anchor before daylight and that afternoon sighted Cape Bojeador. About this time the wind began to freshen, then blew harder, and finally rose to a gale. The wind would lash the waves fiercely, and as the foam broke on
their crest, would spit it horizontally in a white sheet, until, within a very short space of time, the sea was as angry a mass of foam as one would care to behold. The velocity of the wind increased, as did also the size of the waves. When we had sighted Bojeador, we were headed south ward and stood off shore only about four miles. The wind which now held us in the hollow of its hand was from the north east. Within a comparatively short space of time we must have been blown in a southwesterly direction some twenty miles from land. As we had what is called a "following" sea, grealf waves began to break over the poop-deck from time to time. Brower and I soon became too seasick to suffer much agony in the way of apprehension about whether or not the vessel would go down. We were both prone on the cushions of the cabin. To this day we can both recall the desper ate throbbing of the engines of the little launch, as she bravely struggled up the slope of each successive wave she had to climb. If she fell back in the trough of the sea, of course we would be swamped. Time after time, continuously for perhaps a half hour, we would feel the quivering of each ascent, and breathe a bit easier as she reached the crest of the wave and started downward. In the midst of this trying situation, when it was of course quite uncertain as to whether or not we would come out of it, our Sunshiny friend, the young man in charge of the boat, would walk in to see us from time to time, still serene, and say a pleasant word or two, actually grinning the while. At last the fury of the storm abated. As soon as his duties would permit, the "Captain" came into the cabin to chat for a few minutes. While it would be unkind, if not unjust, to say that the man did not have sense enough to be afraid, he certainly was absolutely devoid of any sense of fear. He remarked, smilingly, like a man making some slight admission about a favorite
