Careers of Danger and Daring. Moffett Cleveland

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СКАЧАТЬ figure and golden-bronze hair. So thought various city dignitaries, who chatted with her admiringly while the crowd surged about them.

      Meantime Professor Myers was anxiously watching the manœuvers of some Indians hired by a committee to tow the balloon from gas-works two miles distant, where it had been filled. This was rather against the professor's judgment, for the Rideau River, flowing by the grounds, offered an obstacle that could be overcome only with the help of canoes and tow-lines; and to paddle a big balloon across a river, a fresh-filled, hard-tugging balloon, is not a thing to be undertaken lightly. And in spite of all their skill these Indians found themselves presently lifted into the air, canoes and all (oh, they were badly frightened Indians!), not quite clear of the water, but high enough to make it doubtful if they would ever reach shore, and highly interesting to the crowd which pressed down to the river, even into the river, in well-meant efforts to help, and dragged the balloon up the bank and along toward the platform with such eagerness that they tore great rents in it that let out the gas in volumes.

      In an instant, as happens in crowds, the balloon became the center of a struggling mass of people, who slowly pressed in from all sides to see what the matter was. Now, when twenty-five thousand people are all pressing slowly toward one point, it is apt to fare ill with those at that point; and had not Carlotta acted on a flash of inspiration there would surely have been disaster in that merciless crush. She looked over the shouting, swaying multitude, and in a second saw the danger – saw women held helpless and fainting in that jam of bodies; saw one way, and only one, to save the situation, and took that way. Stepping off the platform, she ran lightly and swiftly over heads and shoulders, packed solid, and came to the balloon. Such was the people's fright that they scarcely felt her pass.

      "You can't go up," cried her husband; "the balloon is a wreck."

      "I must go up," she answered; "if I don't these people will be crushed to death."

      "There's a hole in her big enough to drive a team through," he protested; but already she was in the basket, and a great cheer arose.

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